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Infant and Child Multisensory Attention Skills: Methods, Measures, and Language Outcomes

Intersensory processing (e.g., matching sights and sounds based on audiovisual synchrony) is thought to be a foundation for more complex developmental outcomes including language. However, the body of intersensory processing research is characterized by different measures, paradigms, and research questions, making comparisons across studies difficult. Therefore, Manuscript 1 provides a comprehensive review and synthesis of research on intersensory processing, as well as recommendations for future research. These included a call for a shift in the focus of research from that of assessing average performance of groups of infants, to one assessing individual differences in intersensory processing. The first two new individual difference measures of intersensory processing were introduced by Bahrick and colleagues: The Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP) and The Intersensory Processing Efficiency Protocol (IPEP). My prior research using the MAAP has shown that 12-month accuracy of intersensory processing predicted 18- and 24-month child language to a greater extent than well-established predictors, including parent language input and SES. Manuscript 2 extends this research to examine intersensory processing at 6 months of age using the IPEP to predict language outcomes at 18, 24, and 36 months in a longitudinal sample of 103 infants. Results demonstrate that even at 6 months, intersensory processing predicts 18-, 24-, and 36-month child language, over and above parent language input and SES. This novel finding reveals the powerful role of intersensory processing in shaping language development and highlights the importance of incorporating individual differences in intersensory processing as a predictor in models of developmental pathways to language.

Major Professor: Dr. Lorraine E. Bahrick

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