Language Experience in the Second Year of Life and Language Outcomes in Late Childhood

Gilkerson, Jill; Richards, Jeffrey A.; Warren, Steven F.; Oller, D. Kimbrough; Russo, Rosemary; Vohr, Betty R.

doi:10.1542/peds.2017-4276

Cited by 269 publications

(290 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

240

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These findings have important implications for interventions that aim to reduce the word gap, suggesting services with this specific aim may need to utilize a universal approach, rather than simply targeting families from low socioeconomic *p-value is based on independent sample t-tests comparing the means between high and low educated groups backgrounds, as it is clear from our data there are adults across both socioeconomic groups who would be considered low talkers. While our data cannot yet explain if the amount families talk to their children in the home will lead to differences in future development outcomes, previous research has suggested this is the case [8,21,22]. As the LiLO study progresses, it will describe the trajectories of AWC, CVC and CT's for low and high maternal education groups and consequences for child development outcomes over the first five years of life.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

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

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: There is evidence that parents from more socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds engage in fewer verbal interactions with their child than more advantaged parents. This leads to the so-called, '30 millionword gap'. This study aims to investigate the number of words children hear and the number of vocalizations children produce in their first year of life and examines whether these aspects of the early language home environment differ by maternal education. Methods: Mothers were recruited into a five-year prospective cohort study and categorized into either high or low maternal education groups. Data was derived from the first two waves of the study, when the children were six and twelve months old. At both waves, children were involved in day-long audio recordings using the Language Environment Analysis software that provided automatic counts of adult words spoken to the child, child vocalizations and conversational turns. Descriptive results are presented by maternal education groups. Results: There was large variation within each maternal education group, with the number of adult words spoken to the child ranging from 2958 to 39,583 at six months and 4389 to 45,849 at twelve months. There were no meaningful differences between adult words, child vocalizations or conversational turns across maternal education groups at either wave of data collection. Conclusions: These results show that a word gap related to maternal education is not apparent up to twelve months of age. The large variability among both maternal education groups suggests that universal interventions that encourage all parents to talk more to their child may be more appropriate than interventions targeted towards disadvantaged families during the first year of life.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

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

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Language is a pivotal function, important for developing social relationships and achieving academic success. Some authors have hypothesised that language exposure in early infancy, in terms of vocabulary quantity and quality, is particularly important because it mediates the relationship between the family socioeconomic environment and neurodevelopment in childhood 8. There is evidence that language functioning is reduced in school-aged children born VPT compared with term controls 9–11.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal education and language development at 2 years corrected age in children born very preterm: results from a European population-based cohort study

Sentenac

Johnson

Charkaluk

et al. 2020

J Epidemiol Community Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundSocioeconomic factors influence language development in the general population, but the association remains poorly documented in children born very preterm (VPT). We assessed the impact of maternal education on language development in children born VPT and effect modification by perinatal risk.MethodsData were from the Effective Perinatal Intensive Care in Europe (EPICE) population-based cohort of children born <32 weeks’ gestational age (GA) in 2011/2012. Regions from six countries (Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and UK) used a validated short form MacArthur Developmental Communicative Inventories Checklist to assess language at 2 years corrected age. Perinatal variables were collected from clinical records. We assessed expressive language delay (ELD), defined as (a) not combining words; and (b) expressive vocabulary <10th percentile of norms for age and sex. Perinatal risk (low, moderate and high) was determined using GA, small for GA and neonatal morbidities. We estimated adjusted risk ratios (aRR) of ELD by maternal education with inverse weighting to account for non-response bias.ResultsOf 2741 children, 24.6% were not combining words and 39.7% had a low expressive vocabulary. Low maternal education (lower secondary or less compared with a bachelor’s degree or more) increased risks of ELD: not combining words: aRR=1.52 (95% CI 1.36 to 1.69); low expressive vocabulary: aRR=1.25 (1.04 to 1.51). For children with low perinatal risk, the aRR were 1.88 (1.26 to 2.80) and 1.44 (1.06 to 1.95), respectively, compared with those with high perinatal risks: 1.36 (1.10 to 1.67) and 1.11 (0.97 to 1.27), respectively.ConclusionLow maternal education affects ELD for children born VPT, although the association appears attenuated among those with highest perinatal risk.

show abstract

“…Although the emphasis of the word gap has historically been on adult words directed at children, adult–child conversational turns have been found to be more predictive of children’s language development than adult words (Gilkerson et al, ). Thus, much of the emphasis of this commentary can also be applied to adult–child conversational turns.…”

Section: Why Is a More Precise Estimate Of The Word Gap (Or Lack Thermentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Clearly Matters; Methods Matter Too

Purpura

2019

Child Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over two decades ago, the “30‐million‐word” gap rose to prominence after work by Hart & Risley (1995) suggested that children from families with low socioeconomic status (SES) heard fewer words than their peers from families with higher SES during their first 4 years of life. Recent research challenges the magnitude and even existence of this gap. However, due to methodological limitations, we know very little about the presence, magnitude, and settings in which there may be a word gap. Moreover, causal evidence is also limited. I highlight why it is critical for the field to have a more precise understanding of the nature of the word gap (or lack thereof) and potential avenues for better evaluating this phenomenon.

show abstract

Language Experience in the Second Year of Life and Language Outcomes in Late Childhood

Cited by 269 publications

References 29 publications

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

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

Maternal education and language development at 2 years corrected age in children born very preterm: results from a European population-based cohort study

Language Clearly Matters; Methods Matter Too

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About