Fabia Franco
Biographic Data
| ID | 3771627 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Fabia Franco |
| GIVEN NAMES | Fabia |
| FAMILY NAME | Franco |
| SIGNATURE | FRANCO F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Middlesex University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1327-1080 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Music for displaced dyads
This study is the first to demonstrate the feasibility and potential efficacy of MT for improving mental health and parent-child dynamics among displaced Ukrainian families. Findings support MT as a low-cost, trauma-informed, and scalable intervention. Further research is needed to evaluate its impact in larger, culturally diverse refugee populations through randomized controlled trials
Comparing the benefits of parent–infant flute and singing groups for communication and parenting
There is growing evidence highlighting benefits of musical exposure and participation on several aspects of development and parenting. Aiming to establish a rigorous protocol allowing researchers to study different types of musical interactions and their benefits on the development of early communication, the present study explored parents’ experiences of musically engaging with their infants in different types of music groups. Twenty-five infant…
Home Musical Activities Boost Premature Infants’ Language Development
Infants born prematurely are considered at risk for language development delay and impairments. Using online parental reports, the present study investigated the influence of early musical experience in the home environment (Music@Home Infant Questionnaire) on language development (MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory) while controlling for general enrichment at home (Stim-Q Cognitive Home Environment Questionnaire) and perinatal p…
Development and validation of the Music Cognitive Test
Specific tools to measure the cognitive benefits of music therapy and music-rehabilitation training available to music therapists are few and empirically weak: they are mostly psychometrically unrefined or based on unclear tasks and scoring protocols; they do not take into consideration distinct cognitive functions or are based on exclusively observational protocols. To overcome these limitations, we developed a 15-min cognitive screening tool su…
Singing to infants matters
This research revealed that the frequency of reported parent-infant singing interactions predicted 6-month-old infants’ performance in laboratory music experiments and mediated their language development in the second year. At 6 months, infants (n = 36) were tested using a preferential listening procedure assessing their sustained attention to instrumental and sung versions of the same novel tunes whilst the parents completed an ad-hoc questionna…
Memory improvement in aging as a function of exposure to mood-matching music
This study examined the effect of matching musical emotion and the mood of the listener on working memory and free recall in normal aging. Memory measures were taken at baseline in healthy young and older participants, and, following a happy or sad mood induction, again after exposure to both mood-matching and -mismatching music in a counterbalanced repeated measures design. Compared to baseline, [i] recall was greater following mood-matching tha…
Sing for me, Mama! Infants' discrimination of novel vowels in song
When adults speak or sing with infants, they sound differently than in adult communication. Infant‐directed (ID) communication helps caregivers to regulate infants' emotions and helps infants to process speech information, at least from ID‐ speech . However, it is largely unclear whether infants might also process speech information presented in ID‐ singing . Therefore, we examined whether infants discriminate vowels in ID‐singing, as well as pot…
The Soundscape of Neonatal Intensive Care
Parents who have infants hospitalised in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) experience high levels of stress, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. However, whether sounds contribute to parents' stress remains largely unknown. Critically, researchers lack a comprehensive instrument to investigate the relationship between sounds in NICUs and parental stress. To address this gap, this report presents the "Soundscape of NICU Q…
Soundscapes of infant care and infant-directed communication in two hunter-gatherer societies
This study contributes an ethnographic perspective to the study of infant-directed (ID) communicative activities. We compare soundscapes of infant care and ID vocal communication in two egalitarian, forest-dwelling, mobile hunter-gatherer groups: Mbendjele BaYaka/Aka in Northern Congo-Brazzaville and the Maniq of Southern Thailand. Across the unique patterns of speech and song specific to these different cultures, common threads emerged in infant…
Is Infant Initiation of Joint Attention by Pointing Affected by Type of Interaction
This article reports the results of two experiments studying the effects of type of interaction on infant production of declarative pointing. In Experiment 1, intensity of social presence was manipulated in adult–infant interaction with 12–19‐month‐olds (no social presence; adult responding only; adult also initiating joint attentional bids). Experiment 2 extended the analysis to peer interaction in 12–24‐month‐olds. Pointing was considered in th…
Toddlers' pointing when joint attention is obstructed
The aim of this study was to examine toddlers' ability to take their social partner's line of sight into account when engaging in joint attention. If pointing involves an understanding of the relationship between seeing and knowing, then specific modifications in communication should appear when joint attention is obstructed. In this study, obstacles were introduced in order to manipulate object visibility for the toddler's social partner. Thirty…
Pointing and social awareness
The production of pointing and other gestures (e.g. reaching or indicative gestures) by 47 infants aged 1; 0 to 1; 6 was investigated in two experiments contrasting declarative-referential vs. imperative-instrumental conditions of communication. A further group of seven infants aged 0; 10 was examined in order to highlight pre-pointing transitional phenomena. Data analyses concerned gestures and associated vocalizations and visual checking with a…
Pre-verbal communication in young Down's Syndrome children
Selective production of vocalization types in different communication contexts
This study investigates the production of vocalization in adult–infant–toy interactions from 0;4 to 0;11. The hypothesis is that vocalizations are selectively uttered in relationship to their production context. Five infants (two girls, three boys) were intensively studied. Non-segmental acoustic features of vocalizations in four communicative contexts were analysed in relation to the individual infants, in order to reveal individual differences.…
Baby talk from the perspective of discourse production
The determinants of baby talk
This paper examines the relationship between context and mothers' speech to prelinguistic infants. In the first phase, videorecordings of a mother talking with her infant were transcribed; in the second phase, 48 mothers were asked to select the utterance most apt for a series of drawings representing different contexts of mother–infant interaction. Data analyzed with respect to syntactic and semantic features revealed that the informational cont…
Temporal Characteristics in Infant Cry and Non-Cry Vocalizations
Cry and non-cry vocalizations in four infants, videorecorded between 4 and 8 months of age, were analyzed by spectrograph in order to extract their temporal features. The vocalizations were classified with respect to their communicative value on the basis of situational context. Temporal parameters considered were: sequence length, pause duration, and vocalization duration. In order to analyze the influence of communicative value and non-segmenta…
Differences in Manner of Phonation of Infant Cries
In this work all cry vocalizations produced by four subjects observed from four to 10 months of age were analyzed. By means of videorecordings, cries were classified according to three categories, functionally distinguishable from a communicative point of view. Spectrographic analysis showed that the three functional categories differed with respect to different manners of phonation, although the relation between each category and the specific ty…
Differences in Manner of Phonation of Infant Cries
In this work all cry vocalizations produced by four subjects observed from four to 10 months of age were analyzed. By means of videorecordings, cries were classified according to three categories, functionally distinguishable from a communicative point of view. Spectrographic analysis showed that the three functional categories differed with respect to different manners of phonation, although the relation between each category and the specific ty…
Soundscapes of infant care and infant-directed communication in two hunter-gatherer societies
This study contributes an ethnographic perspective to the study of infant-directed (ID) communicative activities. We compare soundscapes of infant care and ID vocal communication in two egalitarian, forest-dwelling, mobile hunter-gatherer groups: Mbendjele BaYaka/Aka in Northern Congo-Brazzaville and the Maniq of Southern Thailand. Across the unique patterns of speech and song specific to these different cultures, common threads emerged in infant…
Is Infant Initiation of Joint Attention by Pointing Affected by Type of Interaction
This article reports the results of two experiments studying the effects of type of interaction on infant production of declarative pointing. In Experiment 1, intensity of social presence was manipulated in adult–infant interaction with 12–19‐month‐olds (no social presence; adult responding only; adult also initiating joint attentional bids). Experiment 2 extended the analysis to peer interaction in 12–24‐month‐olds. Pointing was considered in th…
Differences in Manner of Phonation of Infant Cries
In this work all cry vocalizations produced by four subjects observed from four to 10 months of age were analyzed. By means of videorecordings, cries were classified according to three categories, functionally distinguishable from a communicative point of view. Spectrographic analysis showed that the three functional categories differed with respect to different manners of phonation, although the relation between each category and the specific ty…
The determinants of baby talk
This paper examines the relationship between context and mothers' speech to prelinguistic infants. In the first phase, videorecordings of a mother talking with her infant were transcribed; in the second phase, 48 mothers were asked to select the utterance most apt for a series of drawings representing different contexts of mother–infant interaction. Data analyzed with respect to syntactic and semantic features revealed that the informational cont…
Temporal Characteristics in Infant Cry and Non-Cry Vocalizations
Cry and non-cry vocalizations in four infants, videorecorded between 4 and 8 months of age, were analyzed by spectrograph in order to extract their temporal features. The vocalizations were classified with respect to their communicative value on the basis of situational context. Temporal parameters considered were: sequence length, pause duration, and vocalization duration. In order to analyze the influence of communicative value and non-segmenta…
Baby talk from the perspective of discourse production
Selective production of vocalization types in different communication contexts
This study investigates the production of vocalization in adult–infant–toy interactions from 0;4 to 0;11. The hypothesis is that vocalizations are selectively uttered in relationship to their production context. Five infants (two girls, three boys) were intensively studied. Non-segmental acoustic features of vocalizations in four communicative contexts were analysed in relation to the individual infants, in order to reveal individual differences.…
Pre-verbal communication in young Down's Syndrome children
Pointing and social awareness
The production of pointing and other gestures (e.g. reaching or indicative gestures) by 47 infants aged 1; 0 to 1; 6 was investigated in two experiments contrasting declarative-referential vs. imperative-instrumental conditions of communication. A further group of seven infants aged 0; 10 was examined in order to highlight pre-pointing transitional phenomena. Data analyses concerned gestures and associated vocalizations and visual checking with a…
Toddlers' pointing when joint attention is obstructed
The aim of this study was to examine toddlers' ability to take their social partner's line of sight into account when engaging in joint attention. If pointing involves an understanding of the relationship between seeing and knowing, then specific modifications in communication should appear when joint attention is obstructed. In this study, obstacles were introduced in order to manipulate object visibility for the toddler's social partner. Thirty…
Is Infant Initiation of Joint Attention by Pointing Affected by Type of Interaction
This article reports the results of two experiments studying the effects of type of interaction on infant production of declarative pointing. In Experiment 1, intensity of social presence was manipulated in adult–infant interaction with 12–19‐month‐olds (no social presence; adult responding only; adult also initiating joint attentional bids). Experiment 2 extended the analysis to peer interaction in 12–24‐month‐olds. Pointing was considered in th…
Memory improvement in aging as a function of exposure to mood-matching music
This study examined the effect of matching musical emotion and the mood of the listener on working memory and free recall in normal aging. Memory measures were taken at baseline in healthy young and older participants, and, following a happy or sad mood induction, again after exposure to both mood-matching and -mismatching music in a counterbalanced repeated measures design. Compared to baseline, [i] recall was greater following mood-matching tha…
Sing for me, Mama! Infants' discrimination of novel vowels in song
When adults speak or sing with infants, they sound differently than in adult communication. Infant‐directed (ID) communication helps caregivers to regulate infants' emotions and helps infants to process speech information, at least from ID‐ speech . However, it is largely unclear whether infants might also process speech information presented in ID‐ singing . Therefore, we examined whether infants discriminate vowels in ID‐singing, as well as pot…
The Soundscape of Neonatal Intensive Care
Parents who have infants hospitalised in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) experience high levels of stress, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. However, whether sounds contribute to parents' stress remains largely unknown. Critically, researchers lack a comprehensive instrument to investigate the relationship between sounds in NICUs and parental stress. To address this gap, this report presents the "Soundscape of NICU Q…
Soundscapes of infant care and infant-directed communication in two hunter-gatherer societies
This study contributes an ethnographic perspective to the study of infant-directed (ID) communicative activities. We compare soundscapes of infant care and ID vocal communication in two egalitarian, forest-dwelling, mobile hunter-gatherer groups: Mbendjele BaYaka/Aka in Northern Congo-Brazzaville and the Maniq of Southern Thailand. Across the unique patterns of speech and song specific to these different cultures, common threads emerged in infant…
Singing to infants matters
This research revealed that the frequency of reported parent-infant singing interactions predicted 6-month-old infants’ performance in laboratory music experiments and mediated their language development in the second year. At 6 months, infants (n = 36) were tested using a preferential listening procedure assessing their sustained attention to instrumental and sung versions of the same novel tunes whilst the parents completed an ad-hoc questionna…
Development and validation of the Music Cognitive Test
Specific tools to measure the cognitive benefits of music therapy and music-rehabilitation training available to music therapists are few and empirically weak: they are mostly psychometrically unrefined or based on unclear tasks and scoring protocols; they do not take into consideration distinct cognitive functions or are based on exclusively observational protocols. To overcome these limitations, we developed a 15-min cognitive screening tool su…
Comparing the benefits of parent–infant flute and singing groups for communication and parenting
There is growing evidence highlighting benefits of musical exposure and participation on several aspects of development and parenting. Aiming to establish a rigorous protocol allowing researchers to study different types of musical interactions and their benefits on the development of early communication, the present study explored parents’ experiences of musically engaging with their infants in different types of music groups. Twenty-five infant…
Home Musical Activities Boost Premature Infants’ Language Development
Infants born prematurely are considered at risk for language development delay and impairments. Using online parental reports, the present study investigated the influence of early musical experience in the home environment (Music@Home Infant Questionnaire) on language development (MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory) while controlling for general enrichment at home (Stim-Q Cognitive Home Environment Questionnaire) and perinatal p…
Music for displaced dyads
This study is the first to demonstrate the feasibility and potential efficacy of MT for improving mental health and parent-child dynamics among displaced Ukrainian families. Findings support MT as a low-cost, trauma-informed, and scalable intervention. Further research is needed to evaluate its impact in larger, culturally diverse refugee populations through randomized controlled trials
Psychology (17 works) · Developmental psychology (14 works) · Language Development and Disorders (10 works) · Infant Health and Development (8 works) · Communication (7 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Cognitive psychology (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Medicine (6 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (5 works)