Analyzing the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) on Fathers’ and Infants’ Verbalizations”

Principal Investigator: Dr. Neil Guterman, Professor, NYU Silver School of Social Work

Collaborators: Dr. Jennifer Bellamy, Dr. Aaron Banman, and Dr. Justin Harty

Dates of award: 9/21/2022 – 8/31/2023

Amount of award: $20,000

Study description: 

Parents’ early verbal engagement in the home is essential to young children’s cognitive development, learning preparedness, and healthy psychosocial development. While much is known about the role of mother-infant interactions in the home, the role that fathers play in the well-being of their young children is understudied. This research project will employ a highly innovative language analysis technology guided by artificial intelligence-based models to analyze over 3,000 hours of audio-recorded interactions between parents and babies, with verbal and self-reported data from biological fathers and mothers in a predominantly Latinx and African American sample of families living in the greater Chicago metropolitan area.  Analyses will examine father-child as well as mother-child interactions (e.g., word counts, vocalizations, conversational turns) and explore how these interactions are linked with and predict such factors as the quality of the mother-father relationship, the attainment of the child’s developmental milestones, and physical child abuse and neglect risk. Findings from this study will lay the groundwork for larger research proposals to apply data science methods that explore the role of fathers in early childhood development and help predict risk of child abuse and neglect.

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