Influence of selected maternal-and child-related variables on child directed speech of Chinese-Filipino mothers

The study investigates how the four (phonological, lexical, syntactic, and conversational) features of child-directed speech (CDS) vary when Chinese-Filipino mothers are grouped according to their work status, age, and the gender of their children. Mothers and their firstborns were observed and videotaped in their respective homes doing their daily life activities. Transcriptions were made, translated, categorized, and analyzed. The results revealed that working mothers and full-rime mothers did not differ in the way they talked with their firstborns. The gender of the child did not significantly affect mothers\u27 CDS. Young mothers (with an average age of 23.5 years old) differed from their older (with an average age of 33 years old) counterparts in their use of the phonological features--especially in the use of prosodic stress, which is characterized by the melodic intonation and varying frequencies commonly used with preverbal babies--of CDS. Further analysis revealed that these old mothers had older children than the children of young mothers. Mothers of older children used more adult-like speech, keeping up with the improving language capability of their children. The findings indicate that it is the age and capability of the child and culture that influence the speech pattern used by mothers