Shapiro Allison L B, Lawless Megan C, Charlifue-Smith Renee, Johnson Susan L
Section of Endocrinology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, United States.
Lifecourse Epidemiology of Adiposity and Diabetes Center, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, United States.
Front Nutr. 2024 May 28;11:1237698. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1237698. eCollection 2024.
Language skills, such as the ability to understand words (receptive language), develop during infancy and are built through interactions with the environment, including eating. Exposure to complementary foods also begins in infancy and may play a significant role in language development, especially in understanding of food-related words. However, the relationship between the complementary foods to which a child is exposed and early language acquisition has not been previously studied. We hypothesized that young children's food-related receptive language (FRL) would reflect the complementary foods to which they were frequently offered by caregivers.
Caregivers of young children (4-26 months; = 408) in the Approaching Eating through Language (APPEAL) Study in the US were surveyed via Qualtrics. FRL was assessed by caregiver-report via a modified MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. Complementary foods offered (CFO) by caregivers were assessed using a modified Food Frequency Questionnaire. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was implemented to identify, 1) groupings of foods frequently offered (>1x/week) and 2) groupings of food-related words understood by the young children.
A 5-class best fit LCA model was identified for CFO (-log likelihood [-llik]=-8727) and for FRL (-llik=-5476). Cross-classification of the CFO and FRL derived classes revealed that children with higher exposure to complementary foods were perceived by caregivers to be most likely to also understand a greater number of food-related words (Probability=0.48). As expected, children having been offered a greater number of complementary foods and who understood a greater number of food-related words were older, compared to those with less complementary food exposure and food-related language acquisition ( < 0.001).
These findings support the potential role of introduction to complementary foods in development of food-related language.
语言技能，比如理解单词的能力（接受性语言），在婴儿期开始发展，并通过与环境的互动逐步建立，包括进食。辅食添加也始于婴儿期，可能在语言发展中发挥重要作用，尤其是在对与食物相关词汇的理解方面。然而，儿童接触的辅食与早期语言习得之间的关系此前尚未得到研究。我们假设幼儿与食物相关的接受性语言（FRL）会反映出照顾者经常提供给他们的辅食。
在美国通过语言促进进食（APPEAL）研究中，对408名4至26个月幼儿的照顾者进行了Qualtrics调查。通过照顾者报告，使用经过修改的麦克阿瑟-贝茨交流发展量表评估FRL。使用经过修改的食物频率问卷评估照顾者提供的辅食（CFO）。实施潜在类别分析（LCA）以确定：1）经常提供的食物分组（每周超过1次）；2）幼儿理解的与食物相关词汇的分组。
确定了一个适用于CFO的5类最佳拟合LCA模型（对数似然值[-llik]= -8727）和一个适用于FRL的5类最佳拟合LCA模型（-llik = -5476）。CFO和FRL派生类别的交叉分类显示，照顾者认为接触辅食更多的儿童也最有可能理解更多与食物相关的词汇（概率=0.48）。正如预期的那样，与接触辅食和食物相关语言习得较少的儿童相比，接触更多辅食且理解更多与食物相关词汇的儿童年龄更大（<0.001）。
这些发现支持了引入辅食在与食物相关语言发展中的潜在作用。
