University-educated parents in Australia speak more words to their children on average than parents with only a high-school education, with the gap emerging at around 18 months of age.
Researchers from the Fraser Mustard Centre at The Kids Research Institute Australia, in collaboration with the University of Adelaide, Griffith University and Oxford University, made the finding as part of the Language in Little Ones (LiLO) study of approximately 250 infants in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland from 2017 to 2019.
The data was gathered using a small device worn by the child which counted the number of words they hear and speak at home with the ability to exclude other sources like radio or television.
The findings have been published in the journal BMC Pediatrics.
The study participants were recruited into two groups. The first was made up of mothers who had completed a university degree, and the second comprised of mothers with a high-school certificate only.
Lead researcher Mary Brushe said the study measured the number of words spoken to each child at six months, one year and 18 months old.
“It’s really interesting to see that the two groups were very similar for the first two time points at six and 12 months, but then that gap emerged at 18 months,” she said.
The results tell us that our families from low educated backgrounds are decreasing the amount they speak to their children over those three timepoints, whereas the high educated families are remaining fairly stable
Co-Director of the Fraser Mustard Centre at The Kids Research Institute Australia, Professor Sally Brinkman, said the number of words a child hears in their early years is believed to have an impact on brain development, IQ and literacy later in life.
“The research up until this point does suggest that more talk is generally better for development,” she said.
The children involved in the study will be monitored until they start school with their results linked to the Australian Early Development Census.
“We’re hoping this will help us shed some light on how much talk is important for these kids, and also what that looks like for kids from different educational backgrounds,” Professor Brinkman said.
The LiLO study is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Project Grant.