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Attachment (AQS) of 100 children aged 12 to 24 months was observed, with more than half of the fathers (and mothers) representing higher social status. Children's language comprehension and production were measured using the Bayley Scales for receptive (RLS) and expressive language skills (ELS). Spontaneous book reading conversations in father-child and mother-child dyads were coded from videotapes, capturing five modes of conversation derived from research on dialogic reading. Path modelling examined the association of these modes on children's RLS and ELS in concurrence with parental attachment and education. First time, significant effects of father-child attachment security on children's RLS were revealed (and confirmed for mother-child dyads). Fathers' impact on child language skills could be further explained through modes which inquire and imitate child responses which were related to RLS and ELS, respectively. Although mothers' modes of conversation were associated with the mother-child attachment relationship, the father-child conversations were not so but instead were associated with the father's educational background. KEYWORDS Language pragmatics; dialogic reading; parent gender; fatherhood; picture book How Fathers' Attachment Security and Education Contribute to Early Child Language Skills Above and Beyond Mothers: Five Modes of Conversation under Scrutiny Studies on early language acquisition traditionally focused on the two basic integral facets of language, i.e., comprehension and production. Clearly, universal mechanisms play a role, such that comprehension drives language acquisition insofar as comprehension precedes language production developmentally and exceeds it substantively (see Bornstein & Hendricks, 2012). However, early language acquisition is also clearly susceptible to environmental conditions, of which parent-child interactions that provide children with opportunities for communicative experiences are central. In exploring parents' and children's language use, past studies have therefore increasingly paid attention to the quality of the home environment in the form of social status, and a few studies also began to examine the quality of the parent-child relationship. Different home environments produce different communication contexts and shape language development in such a way that effects of the social status of the families are obvious even when children's language skills in middle-class and upper-class families are CONTACT Lukas Teufl

The present study examined testosterone (T) and cortisol (Cort) in fathers engaged with caregiving. We collected saliva samples in the mornings and evenings of two consecutive days in 150 fathers of 1‐ to 5‐year‐old children. Fathers completed questionnaires on socioeconomic status, family structure and life, sleep characteristics and body mass index (BMI), and reported on their engagement in childcare. Fathers used smartphone‐based experience sampling throughout 1 week to sample ongoing activities with their children, including times of supervision, joint play, rough‐and‐tumble play, and cuddling episodes. External observers rated father–child attachment during a home visit. We began by testing for widely characterized covariates of T and excluded seasonal variations and known predictors associated with lowered T, such as older fathers and those with multiple and young children, lower BMI, shorter sleep duration, and sexual activity before sampling. Most interestingly, however, fathers’ engagement in childcare and attachment to the child appeared more pronounced the greater the diurnal decline in T. Cuddling predicted a similar negative association, whereas joint play and rough‐and‐tumble play (RTP) showed enhancing effects on declining T. Interestingly, all fathering behaviors (except RTP) were positively related to lower Cort. In contrast, supervision was ineffective on both Cort and T.

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