Rhythmic modification in child directed speech

Interval-based rhythm metrics were applied to the speech of English,Catalan and Spanish mothers addressing their children (aged 2, 4 and 6 years) and compared with their speech when addressing other adults. Results show that when mothers speak to their children, their speech is more vocalic (higher %V) and more even-timed (lower variability in vocalic and consonantal interval duration). Little differentiation is made when addressing children of different ages for the window of development investigated here. These results indicate a greater ‘syllable-timed’ quality to child-directed-speech, irrespective of the presumed rhythmic category of the language in question. Characteristic cross-linguistic rhythmic differences observed in adult-directed-speech are, in the main, preserved, although more weakly, suggesting that while modifications in child-directed speech largely occur within the bounds of a presumed rhythmic category, such categories may, in fact, overlap