Amount of child-directed speech at 19 months predicts expressive vocabulary size at 24 months in low-SES Spanish-learning infants¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q3·i3large
Currency · newest study 2013 · checked against its sources 2026-10-17 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i3 Children who heard more child-directed speech at 19 months had larger expressive vocabularies at 24 months (r = 0.57), even controlling for infant vocalizations (r = 0.51). → Weisleder Adriana 2013
Evidence¶
Weisleder Adriana 2013¶
Weisleder Adriana, Fernald Anne. (2013). Talking to children matters: Early language experience strengthens processing and builds vocabulary. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613488145
q3 · i3 · associational · r2
Correlational analysis of 29 low-SES Spanish-learning infants using all-day LENA home recordings at 19 months and parent-reported Spanish MCDI vocabulary at 24 months. The relation "remained robust (r = 0.51, p < 0.01)" after controlling for infant vocalizations at 19 months.
"Those children who heard more child-directed speech at 19 months had larger vocabularies at 24 months (r = 0.57, p < 0.01)"
Discussion¶
Learner Variables¶
- Oral Language — outcome: instruction changes it
- Vocabulary — outcome: instruction changes it
Related Claims¶
- Child-directed speech varies dramatically among low-SES families, up to an 18-fold difference, largely independent of maternal education and overall talkativeness — related
- Child-directed speech predicts real-time language-processing efficiency at 19 and 24 months and explains gains in efficiency — related
- Maternal talk quantity at 18 months predicts Spanish-learning children's vocabulary size and vocabulary gains at 24 months, controlling for earlier vocabulary — related
- Parental language input differs in quantity and quality across SES groups and relates to children's vocabulary, grammar, and processing development — a broader claim this one bears on
- Overheard adult speech is unrelated to 24-month vocabulary, unlike child-directed speech — related
- Processing efficiency at 19 months mediates the relation between child-directed speech and 24-month vocabulary — related
- Within low-SES samples, quality of mother–child communication predicts children's later expressive language more strongly than input quantity — related
- Substantial variability in maternal talk existed within this primarily low-SES sample, and maternal talk was uncorrelated with SES — related
- The mediation of child-directed speech effects through processing efficiency holds after controlling for knowledge of the target words and excluding at-chance performers — related
- Infants' preference for and learning benefit from child-directed speech change over development, with CDS advantages diminishing by the third year — related
- Social contingency in parent–child interaction supports early language learning, and infants actively elicit higher-quality input through a social feedback loop — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
child-directed-speech-predicts-vocabulary-low-ses |
title |
Amount of child-directed speech at 19 months predicts expressive vocabulary size at 24 months in low-SES Spanish-learning infants |
description |
Amount of child-directed speech at 19 months predicts expressive vocabulary size at 24 months in low-SES Spanish-learning infants |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2013 |
source_checked |
2026-10-17 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — weisleder-adriana-2013 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.