It is known that infant‐directed speech (IDS) plays a key role in language development. Previous research, however, has also identified significant variability across societies in terms of how often IDS occurs. For example, some studies report very little IDS in non‐western, small‐scale societies – including children growing up in small‐scale societies in Tanna, Vanuatu. This is surprising given that IDS is widely assumed as a common feature of human caregiving based on research conducted in urbanised populations which are more well‐studied. Here, we propose that IDS is only one of a suite of important caregiving behaviours that are produced during interactions with infants, which may vary by culture, perhaps being replaced by other, non‐verbal infant‐directed behaviours (IDB). We will examine previously collected data consisting of 94 semi‐structured 10‐min video observations of caregivers and their 18–24 month‐old children in rural Tanna, Vanuatu and urban Vancouver, Canada to identify and compare the proportion of time caregivers spend engaging in IDS and IDB during these interactions, both within and between societies. We define IDS as caregiver speech or vocalisations during the interaction with the infant, and we define IDB as non‐verbal behaviours that are produced with the infant during the interaction. This study aims to take a step towards a more generalised understanding of language development in children, moving beyond the urban and western societies in which our understanding of development is currently based, and the predicted results will aid in recognising different developmental pathways within multi‐cultural communities.

中文翻译：

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瓦努阿图塔纳和加拿大温哥华的婴儿定向沟通

众所周知，婴儿定向言语（IDS）在语言发展中起着关键作用。然而，之前的研究也发现，不同社会的 IDS 发生频率存在显着差异。例如，一些研究报告称，非西方小规模社会中的 IDS 非常少，包括在瓦努阿图塔纳岛小规模社会中长大的儿童。这是令人惊讶的，因为根据在城市化人群中进行的研究，IDS 被广泛认为是人类护理的一个共同特征，而这些研究得到了更充分的研究。在这里，我们认为 IDS 只是在与婴儿互动过程中产生的一系列重要护理行为之一，这些行为可能会因文化而异，或许会被其他非语言婴儿导向行为 (IDB) 所取代。我们将检查之前收集的数据，这些数据包括瓦努阿图塔纳农村和加拿大温哥华城市的看护者及其 18-24 个月大的孩子的 94 个半结构化 10 分钟视频观察，以确定和比较看护者花在参与其他活动上的时间比例IDS 和 IDB 在这些社会内部和社会之间的互动过程中。我们将 IDS 定义为护理人员在与婴儿互动期间的言语或发声，并将 IDB 定义为在互动期间与婴儿产生的非语言行为。这项研究旨在超越我们目前对发展的理解所基于的城市和西方社会，朝着对儿童语言发展有更普遍的理解迈出一步，预测结果将有助于认识多元文化中的不同发展途径社区。