Parent–toddler play talk: Toddler speech is differentially associated with paternal and maternal speech in interaction

Children’s speech is influenced by the speech they hear, in particular by the parental speech addressed directly to them. The aim of this study was to analyse toddlers’ speech with their parents and to investigate the influence of specific characteristics of child-directed speech on child speech in real time during mother–child and father–child dyadic interactions. Eighty-four children (M = 24.11 months, SD = 1.37, 42 girls) and their parents were video-recorded in dyadic freeplay. Parent and child speech was compared on measures of quantity (number of words), quality (vocabulary diversity, proportion, and composition of nouns/verbs) and productivity or complexity. Overall findings reveal very similar speech produced by mothers and fathers with their toddlers and by toddlers with each parent, with the exception of vocabulary diversity patterns. Furthermore, the child-directed speech of mothers and fathers was differently associated with child speech in interaction. Findings suggest that children may be exposed to different lexical sets by mother and father and there may be added value for the child of engaging in separate dyadic interactions with mother and father. Implications for research include sampling child speech across contexts and conversational partners.