Research Project: KÜLTÜREL ÖĞRETMENİN BİLİŞSEL KÖKLERİNDE SOSYOEKONOMİK POZİSYONUN VE GÖÇMENLİK STATÜSÜNÜN ETKİSİ
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Contributors
Funders
ID
TB.00211
Authors
Küntay, Aylin C.
Faculty Member
Publications
Number and type of toys affect joint attention of mothers and infants
(Elsevier, 2021) Koşkulu, Sümeyye; Küntay, Aylin C.; Liszkowski, Ulf; Uzundağ, Berna A.; Department of Psychology; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Establishing joint attention with a caregiver on a physical object provides an optimal environment for language learning for infants. In the present study, we investigated whether 12-month-olds and their mothers establish higher quality joint attention interactions in the presence of fewer compared to more toys. As a secondary goal, we investigated how different types of toys affect how mother-infant dyads establish joint attention. In a five-minute free play setting, mothers and infants participated in either Five Toy (n = 48) or Twelve Toy (n = 33) groups. They were given organizational (i.e., toys that require arrangement of parts), responsive (i.e., toys that emit sounds via manipulation), and symbolic toys (i.e., toys that elicit pretend play). Results showed that compared to the Twelve Toy group, joint attention interactions in the Five Toy group were less frequent, lasted longer, were more likely to be initiated by maternal following than by maternal directing of infants' attention, and more likely to be coordinated in which infants demonstrated awareness of the mothers' simultaneous attentional focus by looking at their mothers, vocalizing, or turn-taking. We further found longer joint attention durations on organizational compared to symbolic toys, which were preferred to a lesser extent by the dyads. With responsive toys, mothers were more likely to initiate joint attention by following their infants' attention. Joint attention interactions lasted longer and were more likely to be coordinated in the second half compared to the first half of the play session, suggesting that over time it became easier for the mothers and infants to settle on certain toys for more elaborate play. In sum, mothers and infants establish higher-quality joint attention with fewer toys in general and with organizational toys in particular.
Development of infant pointing from 10 to 12months: the role of relevant caregiver responsiveness
(Wiley, 2018) Küntay, Aylin C.; Ger, Ebru; Altınok, Nazlı; Liszkowski, Ulf; Department of Psychology; Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Infants' pointing frequency is a predictor of their later language abilities. Yet, predictors of pointing frequency in the first year of life are not well understood. Study 1 explored what factors in infants and caregivers at 10months would predict the pointing frequency of infants at 12months (N=35). Infant-driven predictors were infants' fine-motor skills and point-following abilities. Caregiver-mediated predictors were caregivers' pointing frequency and responsiveness toward infants' pointing. Relevant caregiver responsiveness at 10months predicted infants' pointing frequency at 12months, controlling for the other factors and infants' prior pointing frequency. Study 2 explored whether child-level factors influence caregivers' responsiveness (N=49). We examined the hand shape of infants' pointing (whole-hand versus index-finger) and the presence of point-accompanying vocalizations. Infants' vocalization-accompanied points were more likely to elicit relevant responses from caregivers, while hand shapes played a less pronounced role. Together, the findings reveal an early emerging mutual relationship between infant pointing and caregiver behavior such that certain characteristics of infant pointing predict caregivers' responsiveness, and relevant responsiveness toward infants' pointing predicts the increase in infants' pointing frequencies.
Maternal underestimations and overestimations of their infants’ word comprehension: effects on mothers’ verbal input and infants’ receptive vocabulary
(Cambridge University Press, 2024) Ertaş, Şura; Küntay, Aylin C.; Aktan-Erciyes A.; Department of Psychology; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Infants’ language is often measured indirectly via parent reports, but mothers may underestimate or overestimate their infants’ word comprehension. The current study examined estimations of mothers from diverse educational backgrounds regarding their infants’ word comprehension and how these estimations are associated with their verbal input and infants’ receptive vocabulary at 14 months. We compared 34 infants’ looking-while-listening (LWL) performances with the mothers’ Turkish Communicative Development Inventory (TCDI) reports to calculate the mothers’ overestimation and underestimation. During free-play sessions, we assessed the mothers’ number of words, number of clauses, lexical diversity, and linguistic complexity. We found that mothers have overestimations and underestimations regardless of their educational background. Crucially, mothers’ only overestimations were positively associated with their number of words and lexical diversity. Mothers’ verbal input was not related to infants’ receptive vocabulary scores. The findings suggest that mothers’ input might be aligned with their estimations of their infants’ language capabilities, which might not reflect the infants’ true performance.
Background TV and infant-family interactions: insights from home observations
(Wiley, 2024) Küntay, Aylin C.; Uzundağ, Berna A.; Koşkulu-Sancar, Sümeyye; Department of Psychology; Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Background television has been found to negatively impact children's language development and self-regulatory skills, possibly due to decreased parent-child interactions. Most of the research on the relationship between background TV and caregiver-child interactions has been conducted in laboratory settings. In the current study, we conducted home observations and investigated whether infants engage in fewer interactions with family members in homes where background TV is more prevalent. We observed 32 infants at the ages of 8, 10, and 18 months in their home environments, coding for dyadic interactions (e.g., parent talking to and/or engaging with the child), triadic interactions (e.g., parent and infant play with a toy together), and infants' individual activities. Our findings revealed that background TV was negatively associated with the time infants spent in triadic interactions, positively associated with time spent engaging in individual activities, and not significantly related to the time spent in dyadic interactions. Apart from the relationship between background TV and individual activity time at 8 months, these associations remained significant even after accounting for families' socioeconomic status. These findings imply a correlation between background TV exposure and caregiver-infant-object interactions, warranting a longitudinal analysis with larger sample sizes.
Relation of infants' and mothers' pointing to infants' vocabulary measured directly and with parental reports
(Wiley, 2023) Küntay, Aylin C.; Ertaş, Şura; Koskulu-Sancar, Suemeyye; Ger, Ebru; Liszkowski, Ulf; Department of Psychology; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Infants' and parents' pointing gestures predict infants' concurrent and prospective language development. Most studies have measured vocabulary size using parental reports. However, parents tend to underestimate or overestimate infants' vocabulary necessitating the use of direct measures alongside parent reports. The present study examined whether mothers' index-finger pointing, and infants' whole-hand and index-finger pointing at 14 months associate with infants' receptive and expressive vocabulary based on parental reports and directly measured lexical processing efficiency (LPE) concurrently at 14 months and prospectively at 18 months. We used the decorated room paradigm to measure pointing frequency, the Turkish communicative development inventory I to measure infants' receptive vocabulary, Turkish communicative development inventory II to measure their expressive vocabulary, and the Looking-While-Listening (LWL) task to measure LPE. At 14 months, 34 mother-infant dyads, and at 18 months, 30 dyads were included in the analyses. We found that only infants' index-finger pointing frequency at 14 months predicted their LPE (both reaction time and accuracy) prospectively at 18 months but not concurrently at 14 months. Neither maternal pointing nor infants' pointing predicted their receptive and expressive vocabulary based on indirect measurement. The results extend the evidence on the relation between index-finger pointing and language development to a more direct measure of vocabulary.
