How many words are Australian children hearing in the first year of life?

Brushe, Mary; Lynch, John; Reilly, Sheena; Melhuish, Edward; Brinkman, Sally

doi:10.1186/s12887-020-1946-0

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Using this stringent definition of language input, speech from other family members directed to the target child and speech from a primary caregiver directed to a nearby sibling were not counted towards the child's language input. On the other hand, many studies (such as Brushe et al, 2020) use Language Environment Analysis software (LENA, Greenwood et al, 2011), which uses LENA's proprietary algorithm to automatically estimate the number of words spoken by all adults near (but not necessarily directly to) the target child. These dramatically different definitions demonstrate that there is no clear consensus on what "counts" as language input.…”

Section: Measuring Language Inputmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language input to infants of different socioeconomic statuses: A quantitative meta‐analysis

Dailey

Bergelson

2021

Developmental Science

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For the past 25 years, researchers have investigated language input to children from high‐ and low‐socioeconomic status (SES) families. Hart and Risley first reported a “30 Million Word Gap” between high‐SES and low‐SES children. More recent studies have challenged the size or even existence of this gap. The present study is a quantitative meta‐analysis on socioeconomic differences in language input to young children, which aims to systematically integrate decades of research on this topic. We analyzed 19 studies and found a significant effect of SES on language input quantity. However, this effect was moderated by the type of language included in language quantity measures: studies that include only child‐directed speech in their language measures find a large SES difference, while studies that include all speech in a child's environment find no effect of SES. These results support recent work suggesting that methodological decisions can affect researchers' estimates of the “word gap.” Overall, we find that young children from low‐SES homes heard less child‐directed speech than children from mid‐ to high‐SES homes, though this difference was much smaller than Hart & Risley's “30 Million Word Gap.” Finally, we underscore the need for more cross‐cultural work on language development and the forces that may contribute to it, highlighting the opportunity for better integration of observational, experimental, and intervention‐based approaches.

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Section: Measuring Language Inputmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language input to infants of different socioeconomic statuses: A quantitative meta‐analysis

Dailey

Bergelson

2021

Developmental Science

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“…The LiLO study started collecting language data in the home, involving day-long recordings, when the children were 6 months old with data collection occurring every 6 months, until their first year of schooling, around age 5. We previously reported that when children were 6 and 12 months old there were no meaningful differences in any measure of parentchild talk between maternal education groups [12]. There was large variability, with high and low talkers within both education groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…A home visit occurred with each family within 2 months of the child's 6, 12 and 18 month birthdates. Data collection procedures have been previously described, with processes remaining consistent at each wave for all families in the study [12].…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The education word gap emerges by 18 months: findings from an Australian prospective study

et al. 2021

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Background The idea of the ‘30 million word gap’ suggests families from more socioeconomically advantaged backgrounds engage in more verbal interactions with their child than disadvantaged families. Initial findings from the Language in Little Ones (LiLO) study up to 12 months showed no word gap between maternal education groups. Methods Families with either high or low maternal education were purposively recruited into a five-year prospective study. We report results from the first three waves of LiLO when children were 6, 12 and 18 months old. Day-long audio recordings, obtained using the Language Environment Analysis software, provided counts of adult words spoken to the child, child vocalizations and conversational turns. Results By the time children were 18 months old all three measures of talk were 0.5 to 0.7 SD higher among families with more education, but with large variation within education groups. Changes in talk from 6 to 18 months highlighted that families from low educated backgrounds were decreasing the amount they spoke to their children (− 4219.54, 95% CI -6054.13, − 2384.95), compared to families from high educated backgrounds who remained relatively stable across this age period (− 369.13, 95% CI − 2344.57, 1606.30). Conclusions The socioeconomic word gap emerges between 12 and 18 months of age. Interventions to enhance maternal communication, child vocalisations and vocabulary development should begin prior to 18 months.

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“…There is now broad acceptance of this social gradient for language development as there is for many other aspects of child development (Marmot, 2010;Maggi et al, 2010) and some evidence that these gaps are evident for language may not be apparent at 12 months (Brushe et al, 2020) but has emerged by 18 months of age (Brushe et al, 2021;Fernald et al, 2013). Concerns expressed about the Hart and Risley study (Fernald & Weisleder, 2015;Kuchirko, 2017) focus on both the analysis and the interpretation of their findings and specifically whether talking more to children or perhaps interacting with them more effectively is, in itself, likely to be enough to redress any imbalance (Wasik & Hindman, 2015).…”

Section: Hart and Risley Concludedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Development

Law

Reilly

McKean

2022

Language Development

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Children's language development has for centuries been a source of fascination to those with an interest in what it is to be human. Like many other phenomena, it emerges so naturally we often take it for granted. Yet it has attracted attention from such a wide range of commentators and such a broad range of disciplines that it is sometimes difficult to recognise that they are referring to the same construct.Clearly, there are some universal biological characteristics that we all share, as outlined in the 1960s in Lenneberg's Biological Foundations of Language (Lenneberg, 1967), a story which did so much to underpin our understanding of cognitive and psycholinguistic aspects of language development. Yet many see language development as the product of a variety of different mechanisms. For example, we have a neural theory of language represented in Jerome Feldman's From Molecule to Metaphor (Feldman, 2008) which brings together biology, computer science, linguistics and psychology to describe the mechanisms through which language emerges from the substance of the brain through multiple biological, cognitive and linguistic levels to become the powerful tool that it is. Yet a functional approach (such as that proposed by Tomasello, 2019) would suggest that there is nothing inherently special about language. Rather it is the product of general cognitive processes and mechanisms. Language development is thus simply an aspect of the evolution of general intelligence, and the critical word here is evolution.Normal human ontogeny thus requires both the maturation of species specific cognitive and social capacities and also individual experience in such things as collaborative and communicative interactions with others, structured by cultural artefacts such as linguistic conventions and social norms.

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How many words are Australian children hearing in the first year of life?

Cited by 9 publications

References 17 publications

Language input to infants of different socioeconomic statuses: A quantitative meta‐analysis

Language input to infants of different socioeconomic statuses: A quantitative meta‐analysis

The education word gap emerges by 18 months: findings from an Australian prospective study

Language Development

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