On Linguistic and Interactive Aspects of Infant-Adult Communication in a Pathological Perspective

This is a preliminary report of a study of some linguistic and interactive aspects available in a adult-child dyad where the child is partially hearing impaired, during the ages 8 20 months. The investigation involves a male child, born with Hemifacial Microsomia. Audio and video recordings are used to collect data on child vocalization and parent-child interaction. Eye-tracking is used to measure eye movements when presented with audio-visual stimuli. SECDI forms are applied to observe the development of the child’s lexical production. Preliminary analyses indicate increased overall parental interactive behaviour. As babbling is somewhat delayed due to physical limitations, signed supported Swedish is used to facilitate communication and language development. Further collection and analysis of data is in progress in search of valuable information of the linguistic development from a pathological perspective of language acquisition.