Parent use of content words to Hebrew-speaking children at different stages of language development

- In Hebrew CDS, verb use is similar to or higher than noun use by parents at all developmental stages.
- Analysis reveals changes in the use of content words in parents CDS depending on the child's linguistic stage.
- Parents change their use of content words to accommodate their child's linguistic development.
- The findings strengthen the claim of reciprocal relations in parent-child dyads.

Lexical categories of CDS were examined among 40 Hebrew-speaking parents of infants in early pre-verbal, late-preverbal, single-word and early grammar stages during spontaneous parent-infant interactions. Two hundred utterances from each sample were transcribed, coded for types and tokens, and analyzed. Findings demonstrated a significant growth in types of content words from early to late pre-verbal stages, significant decline at the single-word stage, and an increase at the early grammar stage. Apparently, parents change their use of content words to accommodate their child's linguistic development, attesting to dynamic/reciprocal parent-child interactions. Additionally, findings support that verb use is similar to or higher than noun use by parents at all developmental stages.