What causes the word gap? Financial concerns may systematically suppress child‐directed speech

Ellwood-Lowe, Monica E; Foushee, Ruthe; Srinivasan, Mahesh

doi:10.1111/desc.13151

Cited by 44 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 80 publications

(130 reference statements)

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“…This pathway is one possible reason why lower-SES parents differ on average from higher SES parents in their speech to children, as they would tend to live in dense dwelling, associated with greater maternal stress (see Rowe, 2018 for other possible reasons). This finding joins a recent study OLDER SIBLINGS AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT by Ellwood-Lowe, et al, (2021). They suggest that structural constraints that vary according to SES affect caregivers' speech, and exemplify this by showing that even in midto-high SES families, financial concerns may suppress child-directed speech.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

The Effect of Older Sibling, Postnatal Maternal Stress, and Household Factors on Language Development in Two- to Four-Year-Old Children

Havron¹,

Lovcevic²,

Kee³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Previous literature has shown that family structure affects language development. Here, factors relating to older siblings (their presence in the house, sex and age gap), mothers (maternal stress) and household size and residential crowding were examined to systematically examine the different role of these factors. Data from mother-child dyads in a Singaporean birth cohort, (677-855 dyads; 52% males; 58-61% Chinese, 20-24% Malay, 17-19% Indian) collected when children were 24-, 48-, and 54-months old, were analysed. There was a negative effect of having an older sibling, moderated by the siblings’ age gap, but not by the older sibling’s sex, nor household size or residential crowding. Maternal stress affected language outcomes in some analyses but not others. Implications for understanding the effect of family structure on language development are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

The Effect of Older Sibling, Postnatal Maternal Stress, and Household Factors on Language Development in Two- to Four-Year-Old Children

Havron¹,

Lovcevic²,

Kee³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These findings from Ellwood-Lowe and colleagues 53 provide initial suggestive evidence for a link between financial concern and parents’ child-directed speech. However, there was limited variation in family SES in both studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…To facilitate comparisons with Ellwood-Lowe et al 53 , we compared parent talk during the last week of the month (days 22–31) to the rest the month (days 1–21; see Fig. 2 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is therefore critical to consider potential sources of variability in parent talk. In the current study we examined one possible source of variation that has been hypothesized to exert influence on parents’ use of child-directed speech: financial concern 28 , 53 . We used existing corpora of lab-based parent–child interactions and examined whether parents’ speech to their children varied over the course of the month.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Building on this body of research, Ellwood-Lowe and colleagues 53 recently proposed that the cognitive load imposed by resource scarcity could directly suppress parent talk: if parents’ attention is occupied by financial concerns, this leaves less attention to devote to child-directed speech. They tested this hypothesis in two ways.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Financial concern reduces child directed speech in a socioeconomically diverse sample

Roby

Scott

2022

Sci Rep

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Socioeconomic status predicts the quantity and nature of child-directed speech that parents produce. However, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. This study investigated whether the cognitive load imposed by resource scarcity suppresses parent talk by examining time-dependent variation in child-directed speech in a socioeconomically diverse sample. We predicted that child-directed speech would be lowest at the end of the month when Americans report the greatest financial strain. 166 parents and their 2.5 to 3-year-old children (80 female) participated in a picture-book activity; the number of utterances, word tokens, and word types used by parents were calculated. All three parent language measures were negatively correlated with the date of the month the activity took place, and this relationship did not vary with parental education. These findings suggest that above and beyond individual properties of parents, contextual factors such as financial concerns exert influence on how parents interact with their children.

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What role does the environment play in language development? Exploring the associations among socioeconomic status, parent language input, and language skills in school‐aged children with autism

Pecukonis,

Butler,

Tager‐Flusberg

2024

Autism Research

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Language development in children with autism is influenced by proximal (e.g., parent language input) and distal (e.g., socioeconomic status) environmental constructs. Studies have found that “rich and responsive” parent language input supports autistic children's language development, and recent work has reported positive associations between measures of socioeconomic status (SES) and child language skills. However, little is known about how these proximal and distal environmental constructs interact to shape language development in autism. In a sample of 74 autistic school‐aged children, the present study investigated the associations among measures of SES, the quantity and quality of language produced by parents and children during home‐based dyadic parent–child interactions, and children's expressive and receptive language skills. Results showed that annual household income was positively associated with parent number of total words (NTW), parent number of different words (NDW), and parent mean length of utterance (MLU), while neither parent education level nor annual household income were significantly associated with measures of child language skills. Parent MLU was positively associated with child MLU and child expressive language skills. Findings suggest that annual household income may influence both the quantity and quality of parent language input, and that parent MLU, a qualitative measure of parent language input, may play a particularly important role in shaping autistic children's expressive language development. Future research should study longitudinal associations among SES, parent language input, and child language skills, as identifying environmental predictors of language skills in autism may facilitate the creation of more effective interventions that support language development.

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What causes the word gap? Financial concerns may systematically suppress child‐directed speech

Cited by 44 publications

References 80 publications

The Effect of Older Sibling, Postnatal Maternal Stress, and Household Factors on Language Development in Two- to Four-Year-Old Children

The Effect of Older Sibling, Postnatal Maternal Stress, and Household Factors on Language Development in Two- to Four-Year-Old Children

Financial concern reduces child directed speech in a socioeconomically diverse sample

What role does the environment play in language development? Exploring the associations among socioeconomic status, parent language input, and language skills in school‐aged children with autism

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