International Centre for Language and Communicative Development: Input and Interaction Across Cultures, 2014-2016

Many Western industrialized nations have high levels of ethnic diversity but to date there are very few studies which investigate prelinguistic and early language development in infants from ethnic minority backgrounds. This study tracked the development of infant communicative gestures from 10 to 12 months (n = 59) in three culturally distinct groups in the United Kingdom and measured their relationship, along with maternal utterance frequency and responsiveness, to vocabulary development at 12 and 18 months. No significant differences were found in infant gesture development and maternal responsiveness across the groups, but relationships were identified between gesture, maternal responsiveness, and vocabulary development. The data consists of: 1) ELAN transcripts of mother-infant interaction across three cultural groups within the UK (Bengali, Chinese, and English). The dyads were recorded while engaging in a point elicitation activity and free play when the infants were 10,11, and 12 months old (see table 1 for file labelling conventions used in the dataset). 2) Maternal self report vocabulary scores for the infants at 12 and 18 months