The impacts of the quality of speech were supported by Ramirez-Esparza et al. These authors also identified that parental speech, over non-parental speech, has stronger influences on child vocalizations and conversations, which have been linked to development outcomes. Studies within our NICU have confirmed that exposure to increased number of adult words in the NICU improves cognitive and language scores at 18 months. Hart and Risley first demonstrated the importance of the quantity of language exposure in early language development.

Both the quality and quantity of language exposure affect language acquisition and outcomes. Studies have shown deprivation of maternal voice shortly after birth affects both auditory brain development and childhood language. Infants born prematurely are deprived of the continuous exposure to maternal voice in the womb and may be exposed to considerably less language in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) that can contribute to developmental delays later in childhood. Maternal voice is one of the most important stimuli for the developing fetus in utero, and previous research has shown that fetuses develop recognition for maternal voice by 34 weeks’ gestation. NICU language environments are different for low-visit and high-visit infants and Cuddlers can increase infant language exposure in the NICU. Within the low-visit group, hourly AWCs were higher when Cuddlers were present versus absent (R1 = 1779 versus 552, R2 = 2530 versus 534, p < 0.0001). Cuddler AWCs were similar to high-visit parents and significantly higher than nurse-care times on both recordings.

ResultsĪfter the intervention, there were non-significant increases in AWC/h for Cuddlers and high-visit parents. Bivariate group analyses and longitudinal negative binomial regressions were run.

Each had a 16-hour baseline recording (R1) followed by a language curriculum with linguistic feedback and an outcome recording (R2) 1 week later. Twelve Cuddler-low-visit (≤2/week) infant pairs and 17 high-visit (≥3/week) parent–infant pairs were enrolled. Prospective pilot cohort intervention study. To compare effects of a language intervention on Cuddler and parent adult word counts (AWC), and to compare Cuddler versus parent and nurse-care times.

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