Sex Differences in Language Across Early Childhood: Family Socioeconomic Status does not Impact Boys and Girls Equally

Barbu, Stéphanie; Nardy, Aurélie; Chevrot, Jean-Pierre; Guellaï, Bahia; Glas, Ludivine; Juhel, Jacques; Lemasson, Alban

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01874

Cited by 58 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Our results are, however, in line with previous findings: If there is a (direct or indirect) gender influence on early expressive vocabulary at all, it is small. They are also consistent with recent findings reporting gender differences in language acquisition in low but not in high SES children (Barbu et al, 2015). The expected performance overlap between genders is large, making the relevance of such presumed differences for everyday communication and early childhood education at least questionable.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Due to limitations regarding the size of the subgroups (only seven girls did not attend daycare), this interaction has to be interpreted with caution. Also, we cannot make any conclusive claims about the underlying reasons for these differences, but they could relate to parental communication behavior (Bohman et al, 2009 ; Harris et al, 2010 ; Hart & Risley, 2003 ; Hoff, 2006 ; Rohacek et al, 2010) and complement recent reports on differential effects of environmental variables for boys and girls (Barbu et al., 2015 ; Berglund et al, 2005 ; Vallotton et al, 2012 ; Zambrana et al, 2012). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…Still, presumed and measured gender differences frequently result in separate statistical norms for boys and girls (e.g., Bockmann & Kiese-Himmel, 2006 ; Fenson et al, 2008). The selective relevance of children’s gender in interaction with socio-economic characteristics, such as maternal education and parental stress levels, has only recently gained researchers’ attention (e.g., Barbu et al, 2015; Harewood, Vallotton, & Brophy-Herb, 2016 ; Vallotton et al, 2012 ; Zambrana, Ystrom, & Pons, 2012). Possible interactions of gender and other factors, such as characteristics of the care environment, are highly relevant and underresearched.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Early Vocabulary in Relation to Gender, Bilingualism, Type, and Duration of Childcare

Stolarova¹,

Brielmann²,

Wolf³

et al. 2016

ACP

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This study investigates the predictive value of child-related and environmental characteristics for early lexical development. The German productive vocabulary of 51 2-year-olds (27 girls), assessed via parental report, was analyzed taking children’s gender, the type of early care they experienced, and their mono- versus bilingual language composition into consideration. The children were from an educationally homogeneous group of families and state-regulated daycare facilities with high structural quality. All investigated subgroups exhibited German vocabulary size within the expected normative range. Gender differences in vocabulary composition, but not in size, were observed. There were no general differences in vocabulary size or composition between the 2 care groups. An interaction between the predictors gender and care arrangement showed that girls without regular daycare experience before the age of 2 years had a somewhat larger vocabulary than all other investigated subgroups of children. The vocabulary size of the 2-year-old children in daycare correlated positively with the duration of their daycare experience prior to testing. The small subgroup of bilingual children investigated exhibited slightly lower but still normative German expressive vocabulary size and a different vocabulary composition compared to the monolingual children. This study expands current knowledge about relevant predictors of early vocabulary. It shows that in the absence of educational disadvantages the duration of early daycare experience of high structural quality is positively associated with vocabulary size but also points to the fact that environmental characteristics, such as type of care, might affect boys’ and girls’ early vocabulary in different ways.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Early Vocabulary in Relation to Gender, Bilingualism, Type, and Duration of Childcare

Stolarova¹,

Brielmann²,

Wolf³

et al. 2016

ACP

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Whether gender is a meaningful source of variation in language abilities has remained a matter of debate across the decades (Barbu et al, 2015). Although in general intelligence, there is not a marked gender difference discovered by research (Furnham & Rawles, 1995), studies have found some differences in learning reading and math between the genders: male students than females tend to have better math performance outcomes (Cimpian, Lubienski, Timmer, Makowski, & Miller, 2016); females have slightly better verbal skills than males (Galambos, Berenbaum, & McHale, 2009).…”

Section: Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Gap of Reading Performance between ELL and EOL Children from Low-Income Families in Elementary School Years

Lin

Wei

2019

JECS

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This study explored reading development in low income children of English Language learners (ELLs) from kindergarten to the fourth grade. Data used in this study came from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K: 2011). A sample size was 3,451 students below the poverty threshold. The independent variables were the indicators of home language and gender. The six dependent variables were students’ reading item response theory (IRT) scale scores in the fall and spring semester of the kindergarten year and all the spring semesters from the first to the fourth grade. Six full 2-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) models were used for the statistical analyses. The results found there is a gender difference in children’s reading performance, with female doing slightly better than male students. The low-income children’s performance in reading IRT scores has shown differences among the three groups. The English Only Learners (EOL) had the highest mean scores throughout the five years. The group of Multilingual Learners (ML) and English Language Learner (ELL) group had mixed results of the second or lowest scores among these three groups. Among the six subgroups the EOL female had the highest mean scores throughout the five years.

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“…Earlier studies suggest that gender is a fundamental factor for variation (Maccoby and Jacklin, 1974;Fenson et al, 1994), whereas more recent ones claim the exact opposite (Hyde, 2005;Wallentin, 2009). In an attempt to resolve the debate, Barbu et al (2015) investigated not only gender differences but also children's socioeconomic status (SES) who acquired a frequent phonological alternation in French between the ages of around 2.5 and 6.5 years. Gender differences were only found for children with low SES, whereas low-SES boys performed worse Apparent optionality in clitic placement in certain syntactic environments has also occasionally been noted for adult CG, culminating in separate (sociolinguistic) empirical investigations in which Pappas (2012Pappas ( , 2014 reports a certain level of variability.…”

Section: Toward Capturing the Socio-syntax Of Development Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquiring Clitic Placement in Bilectal Settings: Interactions between Social Factors

2017

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This article examines the development of object clitic placement by children acquiring Cypriot Greek. Greek-speaking Cyprus is sociolinguistically characterized by diglossia between two varieties of Greek, the local Cypriot Greek and the official Standard Modern Greek. Arguably as a result of this situation, clitics may be placed postverbally (enclisis) or preverbally (proclisis) in the same syntactic environment; while the former is a property of Cypriot Greek and the latter is typically considered an effect of the standard language. The following issues are investigated here: (a) how such bilectal speakers distinguish between the two Greek varieties with respect to clitic placement; (b) how the acquisition of clitics develops over time; (c) how, and which, sociolinguistic factors determine clitic placement; and (d) how schooling may affect clitic placement. To address (a)-(d), a sentence completion task was used to elicit clitic productions, administered to 431 children around Cyprus ranging from 2 years 8 months to 8 years 11 months. The C5.0 machine-learning algorithm was employed to model the interaction of (socio-)linguistic factors on the development of clitic placement. The model shows that speakers acquire the relevant features very early, yet compartmentalization of form and function according to style emerges only as they engage in the larger speech community. In addition, the effects of sociolinguistic factors on clitic placement appear gradually.

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Sex Differences in Language Across Early Childhood: Family Socioeconomic Status does not Impact Boys and Girls Equally

Cited by 58 publications

References 64 publications

Early Vocabulary in Relation to Gender, Bilingualism, Type, and Duration of Childcare

Early Vocabulary in Relation to Gender, Bilingualism, Type, and Duration of Childcare

Understanding the Gap of Reading Performance between ELL and EOL Children from Low-Income Families in Elementary School Years

Acquiring Clitic Placement in Bilectal Settings: Interactions between Social Factors

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