Analyzing the effect of sibling number on input and output in the first 18 months

TY - JOUR

T1 - Analyzing the effect of sibling number on input and output in the first 18 months

AU - Laing, Catherine

AU - Bergelson, Elika

N1 - © 2024 The Authors

PY - 2024/1/6

Y1 - 2024/1/6

N2 - Prior research suggests that across a wide range of cognitive, educational, and health-based measures, first-born children outperform their later-born peers. Expanding on this literature using naturalistic home-recorded data and parental vocabulary reports, we find that early language outcomes vary by number of siblings in a sample of 43 English-learning U.S. children from mid-to-high socioeconomic status homes. More specifically, we find that children in our sample with two or more—but not one—older siblings had smaller productive vocabularies at 18 months, and heard less input from caregivers across several measures than their peers with less than two siblings. We discuss implications regarding what infants experience and learn across a range of family sizes in infancy

AB - Prior research suggests that across a wide range of cognitive, educational, and health-based measures, first-born children outperform their later-born peers. Expanding on this literature using naturalistic home-recorded data and parental vocabulary reports, we find that early language outcomes vary by number of siblings in a sample of 43 English-learning U.S. children from mid-to-high socioeconomic status homes. More specifically, we find that children in our sample with two or more—but not one—older siblings had smaller productive vocabularies at 18 months, and heard less input from caregivers across several measures than their peers with less than two siblings. We discuss implications regarding what infants experience and learn across a range of family sizes in infancy

U2 - 10.1111/infa.12578

DO - 10.1111/infa.12578

M3 - Article

SN - 1525-0008

JO - Infancy

JF - Infancy

ER -