ArticlePloS one2020
Effect of maternal depression on infant-directed speech to prelinguistic infants: Implications for language development.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- InCHORRRuS: Infant-Directed Communication Highlights and Organizes Repetition and Redundancy Through Rhythmic Structure.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Review
- From womb to words: the sex-specific interplay of fetal sex hormones and maternal mood on infant language development.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Article
- Do the early social environment and persistent peripartum depressive symptoms shape toddlers' expressive language?JCPP advances · 2025Article
- Investigation of mothers' elicited infant-directed speech and singing for preterm infants.Pediatric research · 2025Article
- Psychiatric Risk Factors for Postpartum Depression: A Systematic Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Examining the Relation Between Prenatal Emotion Dysregulation and Toddler Vocabulary Development: A Biobehavioral Approach.Developmental psychobiology · 2025Article
- Evaluation of the Early Development of 6-Month-Old Babies in the Case of Maternal Postpartum Depression with or Without Bipolar Disorder.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Does Screen Time Do More Damage in Boys Than Girls?Cureus · 2024Article
- Home Musical Activities Boost Premature Infants' Language Development.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Positive maternal affect during mother-litter interaction is reduced in new mother rats exhibiting a depression-like phenotype.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Maternal and paternal depressive symptoms and parental vocalisation behaviours in infancy: findings from UK-based birth cohort.Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry · 2023Article
- The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on infant development and maternal mental health in the first 2 years of life.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies · 2023Article
- Association of Postpartum Maternal Mood With Infant Speech Perception at 2 and 6.5 Months of Age.JAMA network open · 2022Article
- COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Restrictions: Factors That May Affect Perinatal Maternal Mental Health and Implications for Infant Development.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2022Review
- Maternal Depression Affects Infants' Lexical Processing Abilities in the Second Year of Life.Brain sciences · 2020Article
- First Sounds of Emotion: Newborns' Sensitivity to Emotional Prosody and Its Relation With Maternal Depressive Traits.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant StudiesArticle
- Article
- Toddlers' prior social experience with speakers influences their word learning.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant StudiesArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The nature and timing of caregivers' speech provides an important foundation for infant attention and language development in the first year of life. Infant-directed speech is a key component of responsive parent-infant communication that is typically characterised by exaggerated intonation and positive affect. This study examines the effect of postnatal depression on the expression of positive vocal affect and pitch, the quantity of mothers' infant-directed speech input and the timing of vocal responses between mother and infant. Postnatal mothers currently experiencing symptoms of depression (n = 13) were matched to postnatal mothers who were not experiencing symptoms of depression (n = 13), and audio-recorded while playing with their 6-month-old infants. Compared with depressed mothers, non-depressed mothers used a higher mean pitch and pitch range, spoke more, gave faster verbal responses and were rated as expressing more positive valence in their voice. These preliminary findings indicate that mothers experiencing low mood use less infant-directed speech and less exaggerated pitch with prelinguistic infants. Postnatal depression is a major health issue that adversely impacts the parent and child. Early interventions for PND may benefit from identifying ways to support the timing of conversations and mothers' use of appropriate vocal pitch and infant-directed speech modifications. Further research is needed to confirm whether these strategies support early conversations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.