Infant Speech: Effect of Systematic Reading of Stories

Abstract

24 children between 13 months and 30 months of age were compared to a control group of 10 children of the same ages, during which time books were furnished weekly and a regimen of reading was prescribed for the children in the experimental group. Spontaneous vocalization of each of the 34 children was recorded by paper and pencil in the IPA in home visits during each 2-month period. Little difference was found between groups in mean scores for phoneme frequency until about the 17th month, and from then on the difference increased consistently with the experimental group having higher scores than the controls.