Differences in early gesture explain SES disparities in child vocabulary size at school entry - PubMed (original) (raw)

Differences in early gesture explain SES disparities in child vocabulary size at school entry

Meredith L Rowe et al. Science. 2009.

Abstract

Children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) families, on average, arrive at school with smaller vocabularies than children from high-SES families. In an effort to identify precursors to, and possible remedies for, this inequality, we videotaped 50 children from families with a range of different SES interacting with parents at 14 months and assessed their vocabulary skills at 54 months. We found that children from high-SES families frequently used gesture to communicate at 14 months, a relation that was explained by parent gesture use (with speech controlled). In turn, the fact that children from high-SES families have large vocabularies at 54 months was explained by children's gesture use at 14 months. Thus, differences in early gesture help to explain the disparities in vocabulary that children bring with them to school.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Scatter plots showing relations between (i) SES and Child Gesture at 14 months (top left), (ii) SES and Parent Gesture at child age 14 months (top middle), (iii) Parent Gesture and Child Gesture (top right), and (iv) analysis showing that Parent Gesture mediates the relation between SES and Child Gesture, controlling for Child Speech at 14 months (bottom), N=50. SES and Child Speech, taken together, explain 45% of the variation in Child Gesture; adding Parent Gesture explains 52%.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Scatter plots showing relations between (i) SES and Child Vocabulary Skill (PPVT) at 54 months (top left), (ii) SES and Child Gesture at 14 months (top middle), and (iii) Child Gesture and Child Vocabulary Skill (top right), and (iv) analysis showing that Child Gesture mediates the relation between SES and Child Vocabulary Skill, controlling for Child Speech at 14 months (bottom), N=50. SES and Child Speech, taken together, explain 33% of the variation in Child Vocabulary Skill; adding Child Gesture explains 40%.

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