Speech in Same- and Different-sex Twins 4 and 5 Years Old

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the sex makeup of pairs of twins on language acquisition. Past research indicated that this variable plays a role in speech problems of twin children. The questions raised were whether being a boy or a girl and having a boy or girl co-twin affected linguistic performance. A language test was given to 30 pairs of boy-girl twins, 16 pairs of boy twins, and 16 pairs of girl twins whose average age was 4 years 8 months. Their test scores confirmed our hypotheses. The poorest performance was obtained by the boy twin pairs and the best performance, by either the girl twin pairs or the different-sex pairs. The results were interpreted in the light of findings on language learning differences between girls and boys, and also in terms of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.

Effect of sex and dyad composition on speech and gesture development of singleton and twin children

“…In contrast to previous research showing a female advantage among twin dyads in terms of speech production (Galsworthy et al, 2000; Rice et al, 2014), we did not find any evidence of differences either in speech or gesture production among twin dyads. However, even though the difference was not significant, it is worthy to note that both girl-girl and girl-boy twins tended to produce a greater amount, diversity, and complexity of speech compared to boy-boy twins, in line with the previous findings (Garitte et al, 2002; Gücüyener et al, 2011). This tendency was reversed for gesture production: boy-boy twins tended to use a greater amount and diversity of gestures compared to girl-girl and girl-boy twins.…”

“…Sex differences in early speech and gestures produced by twins Most of the earlier research on twins focused on same-sex twin dyads. Several of these studies investigated the effect of child sex on language development and showed that boy-boy twins lag behind girl-girl twins in their language abilities (Davis, 1937;Day, 1932;Galsworthy, Dionne, Dale & Plomin, 2000;Garitte, Almodovar, Benjamin & Canhao, 2002;Gücüyener et al, 2011;Hay & O'Brien, 1983;Rice et al, 2014). On average, boy-boy twins have been shown to be 6-to-8-months behind girl-girl twins in their expressive and receptive language skills, as assessed by parent report at age 2;6 (Hay & O'Brien, 1983).…”

“…Compared to several studies with same-sex twin dyads, there are only a few studies that examine the language development of mixed-sex twin dyads (i.e., boy-girl). Some studies suggest that girl-girl twins outperform both boy-boy and boy-girl twins in their spoken language abilities (Galsworthy et al, 2000), while other studies suggest that girl-girl and girl-boy twins show similar levels of performance in their spoken language abilities (Garitte et al, 2002; Gücüyener et al, 2011).…”

Comparative Development of Surviving Co-Twins of Vanishing Twin Conceptions, Twins and Singletons

“…At 30 months of age, twin boys were 8 months behind in expressive language and 6 months behind in verbal comprehension (Hay et al, 1987) compared to girls. Similarly, when male twin pairs were compared with female or different-sex pair twins using a language test, it was noted that female and opposite-sex twin pairs performed better than male twin pairs (Garitte et al, 2002). The reason for this gender difference is unclear.…”