TY - JOUR
T1 - Talking to Children Matters
T2 - Early Language Experience Strengthens Processing and Builds Vocabulary
AU - Weisleder, Adriana
AU - Fernald, Anne
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (R01 DC008838) to A. Fernald.
PY - 2013/11
Y1 - 2013/11
N2 - Infants differ substantially in their rates of language growth, and slow growth predicts later academic difficulties. In this study, we explored how the amount of speech directed to infants in Spanish-speaking families low in socioeconomic status influenced the development of children's skill in real-time language processing and vocabulary learning. All-day recordings of parent-infant interactions at home revealed striking variability among families in how much speech caregivers addressed to their child. Infants who experienced more child-directed speech became more efficient in processing familiar words in real time and had larger expressive vocabularies by the age of 24 months, although speech simply overheard by the child was unrelated to vocabulary outcomes. Mediation analyses showed that the effect of child-directed speech on expressive vocabulary was explained by infants' language-processing efficiency, which suggests that richer language experience strengthens processing skills that facilitate language growth.
AB - Infants differ substantially in their rates of language growth, and slow growth predicts later academic difficulties. In this study, we explored how the amount of speech directed to infants in Spanish-speaking families low in socioeconomic status influenced the development of children's skill in real-time language processing and vocabulary learning. All-day recordings of parent-infant interactions at home revealed striking variability among families in how much speech caregivers addressed to their child. Infants who experienced more child-directed speech became more efficient in processing familiar words in real time and had larger expressive vocabularies by the age of 24 months, although speech simply overheard by the child was unrelated to vocabulary outcomes. Mediation analyses showed that the effect of child-directed speech on expressive vocabulary was explained by infants' language-processing efficiency, which suggests that richer language experience strengthens processing skills that facilitate language growth.
KW - cognitive processes
KW - environmental effects
KW - individual differences
KW - language development
KW - poverty
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84887327598&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/0956797613488145
DO - 10.1177/0956797613488145
M3 - Article
C2 - 24022649
AN - SCOPUS:84887327598
VL - 24
SP - 2143
EP - 2152
JO - Psychological Science
JF - Psychological Science
SN - 0956-7976
IS - 11
ER -