The birth cohort study of the German National Educational Panel Study takes up the challenge of measuring education-relevant conditions and processes as well as the development of competencies in the first years of a child's life. The rationale to begin "from the crib on" can be found in results of infant and early childhood research. We review the design and main features of existing birth cohort studies in the field of education conducted in developed countries. Most studies begin when infants are between 6 and 11 months old with subsequent waves annually or every second year. The most common instruments are computer-assisted parent interviews, sometimes accompanied by additional self-completion modules, or completely self-administered questionnaires. We discuss early childhood developmental indicators and instruments that can be applied in large-scale assessments carried out in private homes. We favor measurements with predictive validity for subsequent development. The birth cohort study will start in 2012 with a representative sample of 3,000 children born in Germany in this year.

Late Talkers (= LTs) are identified at the age of two on the basis of their restricted language skills regarding expressive lexicon and are at risk for Specific Language Impairment (= SLI). SLI-children especially show deficits in the area of grammar, but also in the area of phonology. Receptive language, phonetic and phonological abilities are seen as within language predictors for LTs' outcome. This article addresses the question of whether German LTs show heterotypic continuity in (i) expressive lexicon and grammar, i.e. lexical bootstrapping, in (ii) receptive lexicon and receptive-expressive grammar and in (iii) expressive phonology and expressive grammar. Language development of 17 LTs was assessed at three different timepoints over the course of one year. At the age of three 71% of the sample could be classified as children with persistent language delay or SLI. Cross-lagged correlations were conducted with the following results: German LTs show lexical bootstrapping. No significant correlations occured between receptive measures. But there is a heterotypic continuity between expressive phonetic-phonological measures and expressive grammatical measures. It is concluded that expressive lexicon, i.e. lexical bootstrapping, and also expressive phonetics and phonology are prerequisites for development of grammar in German-speaking LTs.