Neuroscience
Toddlers read to daily by their mothers from an early age have bigger vocabularies and superior cognitive skills.
Helen Raikes and colleagues asked 2,581 mothers from poor families enrolled on the Early Head Start programme in America how often they read to their child at age 14, 24 and 36 months. At each time point, children read to daily, or several times a week, had a larger vocabulary.
Of course it’s probable that parents are more likely to read to children if they have a larger vocabulary, but the researchers also found that children read to more at 24 months had a larger vocabulary at age 36 months, irrespective of how much they were read to at that later time point. Moreover, among English speaking families only, those children read to daily at the age of 14, 24 and 36 months, had superior cognitive skills when tested at the age of 36 months.
“This study shows relations between reading to children and children's language and cognitive development begin very early and implies that parent-child bookreading and other language-oriented interventions for vulnerable children should begin much earlier than has generally been proposed”, said lead researcher Helen Raikes of Nebraska-Lincoln university.
The researchers also found first born children were more likely to be read to, as were girls, and the children of better educated mothers.
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Raikes, H.H., Raikes H.A., Pan B.A., Luze, G., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., Rodriguez, E.T., Brooks-Gunn, J., Constantine, J. & Tarullo, L.B. (2006). Mother-child bookreading in low-income families: Correlates and outcomes during the first three years of life. Child Development, In Press.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Reading to babies gives them a head-start
Toddlers read to daily by their mothers from an early age have bigger vocabularies and superior cognitive skills.Helen Raikes and colleagues asked 2,581 mothers from poor families enrolled on the Early Head Start programme in America how often they read to their child at age 14, 24 and 36 months. At each time point, children read to daily, or several times a week, had a larger vocabulary.
Of course it’s probable that parents are more likely to read to children if they have a larger vocabulary, but the researchers also found that children read to more at 24 months had a larger vocabulary at age 36 months, irrespective of how much they were read to at that later time point. Moreover, among English speaking families only, those children read to daily at the age of 14, 24 and 36 months, had superior cognitive skills when tested at the age of 36 months.
“This study shows relations between reading to children and children's language and cognitive development begin very early and implies that parent-child bookreading and other language-oriented interventions for vulnerable children should begin much earlier than has generally been proposed”, said lead researcher Helen Raikes of Nebraska-Lincoln university.
The researchers also found first born children were more likely to be read to, as were girls, and the children of better educated mothers.
___________________________________
Raikes, H.H., Raikes H.A., Pan B.A., Luze, G., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., Rodriguez, E.T., Brooks-Gunn, J., Constantine, J. & Tarullo, L.B. (2006). Mother-child bookreading in low-income families: Correlates and outcomes during the first three years of life. Child Development, In Press.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Experts Point To Lack Of Gesturing As Reason For Smaller Vocabulary In Poor Children
Psychologists at the University of Chicago say one explanation for why children from poorer families have smaller vocabularies is that their parents communicate with them using a narrow range of gestures. The use of gestures, such as pointing, has been...
- Mothers' Reading Style Affects Children's Later Understanding Of Other People's Minds
The use of cognitive verbs like 'think', 'know', 'remember' and 'believe' by mothers when reading picture books to their children has a beneficial effect on their children's later ability to understand other people's...
- Does The Way Mothers Think About Their Difficult Children Matter?
Early findings have shown that the mothers of badly behaved young children think about their child’s behaviour in a characteristic way, tending to believe that their bad behaviour is intentional and has to do with the nature of the child rather than...
- Dissecting Good Parenting
How affectionate parents are towards their children, and how they respond to their children’s distress are two distinct aspects of good parenting that each have a unique effect on a child’s development, psychologists at the University of Toronto...
- Do Mums Know About Child Development?
An American study has tested how much mothers know about child development, safety issues in raising children, infant sleeping habits and nutrition. Two hundred and three women at a paediatric clinic and an obstetric clinic in a southern state in America...