Multiparty conversation predominates in children's language environments across diverse cultural settings

Little is known about the dynamics of children’s conversations outside of urban Western contexts, where research focuses on one-on-one interactions with parents. Our study addresses this gap, aggregating naturalistic speech data gathered in 10 countries across multiple labs, and using novel speech diarization algorithms to extract and classify different types of conversation. We analyzed 23,000 hours of child-centered audio recordings taken from 844 children (mean age 23 months; 389 girls) across urban, agricultural, and foraging societies. We found that multiparty conversations, involving at least three speakers, are more frequent than any other type of conversation. Across settings, children’s relative exposure to conversation differed based on their age, number of siblings, and mother’s education. We conclude that the kinds of conversation most often studied differ from those children typically encounter. Greater focus on children’s conversations in multiparty contexts may provide a more representative picture of their daily experience with language.