Infants’ home auditory environment: Background sounds shape language interactions.

Background sounds at home-namely those from television, communication devices, music, appliances, transportation, and construction-can support or impede infant language interactions and learning. Yet real-time connections at home between background sound and infant-caregiver language interactions remain unexamined. We quantified background sounds in the home environment, from 1- to 2-hr video recordings of infant-mother everyday activities (infants aged 8-26 months, 36 female) in two samples: European-American, English-speaking, middle-socioeconomic status (SES) families (