Janet Olson

Biographic Data

ID9273467
NAMEJanet Olson
GIVEN NAMESJanet
FAMILY NAMEOlson
SIGNATUREOLSON J
AFFILIATIONSNorthern Illinois University
ORCID0000-0002-4510-2735
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS8
TOTAL CITATIONS0
WORKS AS AUTHOR8
WORKS AS EDITOR0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2011
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2020
H-INDEX0

  • Mothers’ Talk about Perceptions, Wants, Feelings, and Thoughts during Play

    Janet Olson, Elise Frank Masur et al.ARTICLELanguage Learning and Development2020

    The current study examined how mothers’ production of four types of internal state words at multiple ages across the second year in a free play context was related to their infants’ acquisition of those words. Twenty-nine mother-infant dyads were videotaped for 18 minutes during free play when infants were 13 and 17 months old. Mothers’ total and number of different internal state words—subcategorized as disposition (like, happy), perception (see…

  • Developmental changes in the frequency and complexity of mothers’ internal state utterances across the second year

    Open AccessJanet Olson, Elise Frank MasurARTICLEFirst Language2019

    Mothers’ provision of utterances with internal state words has been shown to influence infants’ acquisition of internal state vocabulary and has been proposed to foster preschoolers’ theory of mind development. In this article the authors examine maternal internal state speech during free play with infants at 13, 17, and 21 months. The study assessed developmental changes in the frequency and complexity of the mothers’ utterances referencing perc…

  • Infants’ background television exposure during play

    Open AccessElise Frank Masur, Valerie Flynn et al.ARTICLEFirst Language2016

    Research on immediate effects of background television during mother–infant toy play shows that an operating television in the room disrupts maternal communicative behaviors crucial for infants’ vocabulary acquisition. This study is the first to examine associations between frequent background TV/video exposure during mother–infant toy play at home and subsequent maternal speech characteristics and infant vocabularies. Twenty-five mothers complet…

  • The Presence of Background Television During Young Children's Play in American Homes

    Elise Frank Masur, Valerie Flynn et al.ARTICLEJournal of Children and Media2015

    Mothers of 126 infants, 54 lower-socioeconomic status (SES) infants (26 younger, 4 -11 months; 28 older, 12-19 months) and 72 middle-SES infants (12 -17 months), answered questionnaires about their infants' typical television (TV) watching and interest, the frequency of their independent play with toys and dyadic play with and without toys, and whether or not the TV was typically on in the room at the time.Although infants spent little time activ…

  • Mothers' labeling responses to infants' gestures predict vocabulary outcomes

    Open AccessJanet Olson, Elise Frank MasurARTICLEJournal of Child Language2015

    Twenty-nine infants aged 1;1 and their mothers were videotaped while interacting with toys for 18 minutes. Six experimental stimuli were presented to elicit infant communicative bids in two communicative intent contexts – proto-declarative and proto-imperative. Mothers' verbal responses to infants' gestural and non-gestural communicative bids were coded for object and action labels. Relations between maternal labeling responses and infants' vocab…

  • Mothers respond differently to infants’ gestural versus nongestural communicative bids

    Open AccessJanet Olson, Elise Frank MasurARTICLEFirst Language2013

    Thirty infants at 1;1 and their mothers were videotaped while playing for 18 minutes. Experimental stimuli were presented in three communicative intent contexts – proto-declarative, proto-imperative, and ambiguous – to elicit infant communicative bids that did and did not contain gestures. Mothers’ responses were analyzed, and their verbal responses were further coded as object labels, action labels, internal state labels, and nonlabeling utteran…

  • Mothers respond differently to infants' familiar versus non-familiar verbal imitations

    Open AccessJanet Olson, Elise Frank MasurARTICLEJournal of Child Language2012

    Mothers' verbal responses to their infants' spontaneous imitations of familiar and non-familiar words during naturally occurring interactions were examined in a longitudinal sample observed at 1 ; 1, 1 ; 5 and 1 ; 9. Maternal responses to both familiar and non-familiar imitations exhibited structural characteristics likely to be facilitative of early word learning, including shorter and single-word utterances and reproductions of imitated words i…

  • Infants' gestures influence mothers' provision of object, action and internal state labels

    Open AccessJanet Olson, Elise Frank MasurARTICLEJournal of Child Language2011

    Twenty-four infants at 1 ; 1 and their mothers were videotaped for 18 minutes while playing. Infants' pointing, reaching and object-extending gestures were coded in three communicative intent contexts: proto-declarative, or commenting; proto-imperative, or requesting; and ambiguous. Mothers' responses to infants' gestures were coded as object labels, action labels, internal state labels and non-labeling utterances. Infants most often pointed in t…