Table of Contents
What is Motherese?
Motherese is one of the terms used to describe the more scientifically named Infant Directed Speech, which is when a person uses a higher pitched voice with lilting tones to speak to a baby or animal they find cute. Research shows that infants prefer and pay more attention to Infant Directed Speech and that this preference is a typical part of a baby’s brain’s development as they grow.
One study showed how reduced attention to and interest in this motherese can actually be common in students with an autism spectrum disorder and that the less they focused on and preferred infant directed speech, the more severe their symptoms tended to be. (Xiao et al.)
While the term Autism covers a large spectrum of different conditions and disorders and each child with a diagnosis will be quite different, the findings of this study can help teachers be better aware of their students’ needs and be able to perhaps foresee them sooner.
New Research on Motherese
The study out of Nature was conducted on four cohorts of students from typically developing students to students with a significant autism spectrum disorder. They gathered toddlers in participation with pediatricians supporting the 1-Year Well-Baby Check-Up Approach where doctors help parents see how their baby is developing, and give them caregiving advice in addition to screening for any medical dangers or developmental issues.
The selected participants were exposed to three levels of affective language, which is language with dramatized vowel sounds and a sing-songy rhythm often preferred by children. The first level is called “The Story Language Paradigm” which sounds like a story narrator’s enthusiastic voice, the second, even more affected and dramatic style called “The Karen Language Paradigm” and the third level already discussed, called “The Motherese Paradigm”, is the most affected with the dramatized baby-like language.
While listening to the tapes of the different types of language, the participants were scanned using fMRI technology which gave neuroscientists the ability to see what areas of the participant’s brain were active while listening to the audio and how strong the activation was. The researchers also used eye tracking technology to see how much the infants fixated on the source of the sound and how long it held their attention.
The researchers found that participants who had been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum showed lower activation of key language areas of the brain located in the temporal lobes on the sides of the brain while listening to all three types of affective language. In addition to this finding, the researchers also put the students through a test of their social skills using a scale called the Vineland Socialization and Communication Scale.
Since one of the hallmarks of an autism diagnosis is difficulty with socialization and communication, it is no surprise that many of the participants with autism struggled with their scores in the socialization test. What the scientists found interesting, however, is that the weaker the score the student got on their socialization test, the less their brain had reacted to the affective speech during the fMRI.
In other words, the less a child paid attention and preferred the affective speech, the more severe their social skills would be impaired. This correlation is helpful as it provides another external measure that can be added to other tests done when screening young people for various learning difficulties or developmental issues.
Teacher Takeaways on Motherese
While teachers do not diagnose their students with learning difficulties or developmental conditions, they often still play a major role in screening and advising parents on whether their child might benefit from a neuroeducational evaluation.
Parents only see their children for a part of the day, and often don’t interact with them in the same ways as the teacher. In addition to this, they have a whole classroom or classrooms full of students to compare and note particularities and weaknesses more readily than parents who might not know whether their child is typically developing as, especially first time parents, have no reference points to measure from. Teachers also use lots of affected language similar to The Story Language Paradigm when teaching their lessons.
This gives teachers a unique and valuable perspective to know when or if a student might benefit from a formal evaluation by a doctor. While a full and formal evaluation isn’t always necessary, parents can still benefit from knowing their students’ areas of weakness and strength. Teachers keeping parents up to date on what they are noticing in their students can help parents get a window into how their child works and functions when they’re not around and help them decide how best to deal with any behavioral or educational issues.
Teachers, especially in preschool and kindergarten can use the knowledge of how students respond to affective speech to help give evidence based feedback to school psychologists and parents. While teachers’ intuitions may help them to make good choices, best practice shows that evidence based decisions are always more reliable. Teachers can notice how different students respond to their story voice or a bit of motherese-styled praise and use this information to respond more formally and with evidence when asked for a report from the school psychologist or parent.
While a child seeming to not pay as much attention to a teacher’s best efforts to use their excited voice could come from a variety of sources from ADHD to boredom, teachers should note how students respond to a variety of affective voices from their own to various other voices such as those from videos or even their peers. This will give them a better perspective on how the student reacts to a variety of stimuli all connected by their use of affective speech and disassociated from the teacher themselves. This will help give the teacher distance and perspective on the students responses rather than just trying to elicit emotional responses with motherese as if it is a one-off test for autism.
Teachers can not only use this insight to pass on to doctors, but also to foresee issues their students might face and tailor lesson plans to include them before issues even arise. A formal diagnosis isn’t necessary for a teacher to recognize when their students have a gap in their abilities. Whether the behavior would be classified as indicative of an ASD or not is irrelevant to whether the behavior is appearing in class or not.
Conclusion
Teachers who notice a student who doesn’t seem to gravitate to the same things as other students can begin watching carefully for the things that they are drawn to so as to be better able to work with them in the future. This allows for teachers, especially those of very young students to perhaps begin helping students before their problems really begin to affect them.
While other teachers might not notice the problems until they start affecting grades, teachers who are vigilant will be better able to anticipate the needs of their students and be better equipped to head off any issues before any grade issues or the student even notices anything is different about their learning.
Want more like this? Make Lab to Class a part of your weekly professional development schedule by subscribing to updates below.
References
Xiao, Yaqiong, et al. “Neural Responses to Affective Speech, Including Motherese, Map onto Clinical and Social Eye Tracking Profiles in Toddlers with ASD.” Nature Human Behaviour, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01237-y.
