Is song a superstimulus for language learning? An interventional study

在家庭中为婴儿提供丰富的语言环境的重要性是众所周知的。对共享阅读和使用Lena技术的研究表明，婴儿听到的语言的数量和质量与他们随后理解和形成语音的能力之间存在明显的关系。然而，增加父母和婴儿之间自发的言语互动的数量是具有挑战性的。增加婴儿接触语言的一个有希望的方法是通过婴儿指导的歌唱。歌曲中嵌入的语言对注意力很有吸引力，我们建议，如果支持父母增加他们在家中与婴儿一起唱歌的数量，我们将看到语言结果的显著改善，纵向衡量。我们将与获奖的Baby College Ltd合作，进行一项单盲随机对照试验，以确定为父母/婴儿双胞胎量身定做的每周定期课程计划，旨在增强父母对唱歌对语言发展的重要性的认识，并增强父母的信心，建立他们在日常生活中使用的歌曲曲目，相对于随机分配参加类似课程、专注于身体游戏的双胞胎课程，我们将显著提高语言理解能力。

The importance of providing infants with a rich language environment within the family home is well known. Studies on shared book reading, and those using LENA technology reveal a clear relationship between the amount and quality of language that the infant hears, and their subsequent competencies in understanding and forming speech sounds. However, increasing the amount of spontaneous verbal interaction that occurs within parent-infant dyads is challenging. A promising route to increasing an infants exposure to language is through infant-directed singing. Language embedded within song is attentionally engaging and, we propose that if parents are supported to increase the amount of song singing they do with their infants at home, we will see significant improvement in language outcomes, measured longitudinally. Partnering with the award-winning Baby College Ltd, we will work towards a single blind randomized control trial to determine whether a programme of regular weekly classes for parent/infant dyads, tailored towards building awareness of the importance of singing for language development, as well as increasing parents' confidence and building their repertoire of songs to use in everyday life will result in significantly improved language comprehension relative to a group of dyads who will be randomly allocated to engage in a similar programme of classes focussing on physical play.