Factors Influencing Early Language Development

Question 1

What are typical language milestones?

Answer 1

1 - 2-3 words, recognise names
2 - 10-20 words, combines 2 words
3 - combine nouns & verbs, use short sentences
4 - vocabulary of 1000 words, sentence length of 4-5

Question 2

How did Fenton et al (1994) look at variability in language development?

Answer 2

1803 children 8-30 months with large variability in words understood
Large variability in words produced again - higher in 90th percentile, lowest in 10th

Question 3

What did Hammer et al (2017) find when looking at language delay?

Answer 3

Factors = male, lower socioeconomic status, older maternal age, low brith rate, being twins
Being late talker at 24 months increased risk of having low vocab at 48th months & low school readiness at 60 months

Question 4

What is glue ear?

Answer 4

Build up of fluid in middle ear causing temporary mild-to-moderate hearing loss
Causes include cold & flu, passive smoking
Very common in young children

Question 5

How does glue ear affect language development?

Answer 5

Winskel (2006) - 86 children 6-8
43 had 4+ episodes of glue ear/ grommets
Assessed for phonological awareness skills & semantic skill
Otitis media children had lower performance on range of language measures

Question 6

How do interventions improve language outcomes in glue ear & language development?

Answer 6

Maw et al (1990)
RCT 186 children with persistent glue ear assigned grommet surgery within 6 weeks or 9 months
9 months after - verbal comprehension in early surgery group expected level but 9 month wait group 3-72 months behind
Expressive language on average 6 months behaving expected level in surgical group & 9 months being waiting group

Question 7

How do cochlea implants work?

Answer 7

2 parts - external sound processor & internal implant into cochlea
Send sounds directly to auditory nerve

Question 8

How did Svirsky et al (2000) look at cochlea implants?

Answer 8

70 children before & after implants
Performance on verbal language measures compared to deaf without
Implants = larger increase in verbal language abilities than those without, similar to typical children
Verbal language age higher for those without implant than those without

Question 9

How did Boundreault & Mayberry (2007) look at sensory factors in critical language periods?

Answer 9

30 deaf adults using ASL as primary language
All deaf from birth - 10 acquired ASL from parents, 10 early acquired (5-7), 10 acquired late (8-13)
Watched grammatical & ungrammatical ASL sentences & respond quickly as possible as to whether it was grammatical or not
Learning ASL earlier = lower error (22% native, 32% early, 41% delayed) & faster response

Question 10

How did Vouloumanos & Curtin (2014) look at attention in language development?

Answer 10

Attention to speech at 12 months predicted vocab at 18 months
Head turn preference procedure - time spent looking at speech & non-speech sounds

Question 11

What was the results of Vouloumanos & Curtin (2014) study?

Answer 11

Time spent looks at speech stimuli at 12mo predicted vocab at 18mo, even when controlling for language skills at 12mo
General indicates of development at 12mo didn’t predict language skills at 18mo
Attention specifically for speech predicts later a language development

Question 12

How did De Diego-Balaguer et al (2016) look at attention & language development?

Answer 12

Argued development of attention shapes development of language
1st phase where attention is stimulus driven - attention captured by factors like rhyme & pitch - help identify word beginning & end
2nd phase where child develops ability to endogenously control attention - allows for grammar development

Question 13

How did Archibald & Gathercole (2006) look at WM?

Answer 13

20 typical dev children with specific language development - all non-verbal IQ above 85 (mean = 106)
Most had STM & WM deficits
WM helps keep track of word order, integrates info etc

Question 14

What is socioeconomic status?

Answer 14

Position of individual/ group on socioeconomic scale , determined by combination of social & economic factors e.g. income, education, place of residence etc

Question 15

What is the 3 million word gap by 3?

Answer 15

42 children observed for 1hr/month for 2.5yrs
Found large difference in vocab size according to income
Number of words heard also differed across income groups
6 encouraging:1 discouraging - high income
1 encouraging: 2 discouraging - low income
Hart & Risley (1992)

Question 16

How did Gilkerson et al (2017) add onto the 3 million word gap by 3?

Answer 16

Used automated language recording of 329 children for 6-38 months
Socioeconomic status grouping based on maternal education
Relationship between SES & words heard
4 million word gap by 4

Question 17

How did Sperry et al (2019) add onto these SES findings?

Answer 17

Observed 42 children in 5 American communities
Measured all caregiver & bystander talk
Wide variation in vocab from other caregivers & to other family members underestimates number of words low income children exposed to

Question 18

Did racial bias influence Hart & Risley?

Answer 18

13 upper class families - 12 white, 1 black
6 families receiving welfare - all black
Baugh (2017) - observational methods may be inappropriate
Language practices of white middle & upper class taken as standard - differences interpreted as deficiencies

Question 19

Does the relationship between SES & early language development exist?

Answer 19

Blanden & Machin - poorest children were 10mo at beginning in vocab development, at 3 & 15 months, behind at 5yrs

Question 20

Why might there be a relationship between SES & language development?

Answer 20

Pace et al (2017)
3 pathways through which SES affects language development - child characteristics, quantity & quality of parent child interactions & availability of opportunities & materials for language learning

Question 21

How does Rowe (2012) look at parental impact on later vocab learning?

Answer 21

50 parent-child dyads
Quantity & quality of parental input examined at 18, 30 & 42 months
Children’s vocab comprehension measured at 30, 43 & 54 months
Quantity & quality of parent input correlated with later vocab

Question 22

How did Huttenlocher et al (1991) look at parental input on vocab?

Answer 22

22 children expiated every few months, amount of mothers speech input at 16 months accounted for substantial amount of variation in child’s vocab growth

Question 23

Is there a causal relationship between parental input & later vocab?

Answer 23

Language is an interactive process - perhaps more child talks, more caregiver talks back

Question 24

What did Rowe (2012) find when looking at is children influence language input?

Answer 24

Quality of language input stays relatively stale across ages, but quality of parental input increases with age
Indicates parents match language to child’s ability

Question 25

How did Fusaroli et al (2019) look at children’s influence on language input?

Answer 25

35 children in 20 months - 6 visits over 4 months
Sentence complexity & number of types of words spoken predicted by parents sentence complexity at previous visit - also vocabulary diversity
Reciprocal parent-child language

Question 26

Is there 3rd factor in language development?

Answer 26

Most parents are biologically related - impact of genes

Question 27

What should twin studies show?

Answer 27

MZ & DZ twins share similar post-natal environments
MZ more genetically similar - if linguistics more similar than DZ, suggests genetic factor

Question 28

How did Dale et al (1998) look at the genetic impact on language?

Answer 28

3442 twin pairs MCDI vocab
Language delay - defined as scoring in lowest 5%
For children with delay - MZ twins 81% cases, DZ in 42%
Genetics play greater role in language delay than typical language

Question 29

What did Petril et al (2009) find when he looked at adoption studies for language?

Answer 29

262 adopted children
Parents educational attitudes, number of books read by parent & parental interests significantly associated with child’s language abilities
Language environment is important

Question 30

What is motherese/ parentheses?

Answer 30

Sometimes known as infant directed speech
Characteristic way of talking to babies
High pitched & exaggerated intonation
Found in many languages

Question 31

What are some studies looking at parentese & what did they find?

Answer 31

Grieser & Kuhn (1988) - characteristics of parentese similar in Chinease in English - impact may be greater than quantity of words
Ramirez-Esparza et al (2014) - 26 children 11/14 months found children who heard more parentese made more utterances & had better language skills at 24 months - quality rather than quantity

Question 32

What did Singh et al (2009) look at?

Answer 32

7 & 8 months
4 words spoken in infant/ adult directed speech
Each word embedded in 6 sentences
Head turn preferences
Children had longer look times when words initially heard infant directed speech than adult

Question 33

What is the effect of multilingualism?

Answer 33

Approx 20% school aged children in UK multilingual (1+)
Much higher in other countries

Question 34

Why might multi/monolingualism differ?

Answer 34

Children exposed to 2+ languages probably hear less of each language than those exposed to 1

Question 35

What did Hoff et al (2012) find when looking at language acquisition across bilinguals?

Answer 35

47 bilinguals & 56 monolinguals tested at 1yr10mo, 2yr1mo & 2yr6mo
Vocab - monolinguals outperform bilinguals on vocab, bilinguals combined languages lead to similar performance
Higher English vocab scores for bilinguals raised in English-dominant house than Spanish - exposure

Question 36

What is the importance of shared book reading?

Answer 36

Shajaeian et al (2018)
Longitudinal study 4768 children assessed at 2-3, 4-5, 8-9
More shared book reading at 2-3 associated better vocabulary & early academic skills at 4-5 & better academic achievement at 8-9

Question 37

What are the different types of shared book reading?

Answer 37

Dialogue reading - creat dialogue about book
Picture books contain more complex sentences than child-directed speech
Themes & objects that might not be encountered in real life

Question 38

What did Chow et al (2008) find about dialogic reading?

Answer 38

148 kindergarteners
Dialogic reading for 12 weeks produced greater improvements in vocab & increased reading interest

Question 39

Do early language abilities predict later reading skills?

Answer 39

Yes
NICHD (2005) - oral language skills at 36 months correlated with reading skills at 54th month

Question 40

What did Lee et al (2008) find when looking at early language abilities?

Answer 40

1364 families in longitudinal study
Assess language ability at 24mo - analysed children scoring in top/bottom third
Larger vocabulary at 2 perform better at reading assessments in grades 1,3 & 5
Vocab size better predictor than total verbs produced

Question 41

What did Catts et al (2008) find when looking at early language ability?

Answer 41

Kindergarteners with & without language delay measured at 2nd, 4th, 8th & 10th grade
Reading abilities lower in language delay, gap remained same across grades
Language delay when starting school didn’t catch up

Question 42

How did Dickinson et al (2003) look at the importance of early language skills?

Answer 42

Phonological sensitivity (identify & manipulate language sounds) approach - awareness importnat for letter-sound links
Comprehensive language approach - interrelated language skills interact with literacy knowledge