The Importance of Early Childhood Language Exposure in Development

The processes of language acquisition and development begin before children are even born (Brandone, 2006), and their experiences and exposure to language from an early age play a huge role in preparing children for academic and ultimately economic success. “Language is a self-sustaining system that gathers momentum during the preschool years. There is evidence that language is an evolving self-reinforcing system…suggesting that early encouragement to communicate may have beneficial effects” (Dickinson, et al., 2012, 3). However, children are not exposed to language at uniform rates, and researchers have found differences in the attitudes and practices of parents from different cultural and economic backgrounds. A study by Fernald found that at 24 months, low-SES students reached the same levels of vocabulary size and language efficiency as their high-SES counterparts had six months earlier (when the high-SES children were 18 months old) (Fernald, 2013). One study noted that in the US, 37% of fourth grade student are not achieving basic reading skills, and this figure is primarily made up of disadvantaged students (Dickinson, 2010). Similar gaps in language skills have been found for syntax, reading ability, and phonological awareness (Farah, 2006) This effect ‘cascades,’ growing wider as children age, and lower-SES children playing a perpetual game of catch-up for the rest of their lives, a game most will never win.

This gap develops for a number of reasons, including parental education (especially maternal education), cultural and individual traditions, and parental activities. Researchers find differences in cultural ideals of child-parent language needs and practices, including a largely dichotomous division between collectivist and individualistic cultures in the United States, noting that there are those, such as Latin Americans and African-Americans, who do not see babies as intentional communication partners or to see learning as fun, but instead feature an emphasis on group interactions, assuming children gain language skills from the conversations around them, and focusing on adult-led conversations (van Kleeck, 2006, Hoff, 2006, Leseman & Van Tuijl, 2006). Regardless of the reasons for these differences, this gap is not one of cultural deprivation, though it is one that has a lasting effect on a child’s success in school. “Differences in child-directed speech based on parental education level and income were due to differences in parental knowledge of child development” (Landry, 2012). Fortunately, these differences are not due to lack of caring or parental interest, but due to different cultural ideals about child-raising, and different knowledge of research on child linguistic development in the pre-linguistic period.

These differences in exposure to a child matter, though; because of the role early exposure has in developing academic language fluency before even entering school. Academic language refers to the specific lexical, grammatical, and textual choices that a speaker normally makes in the formal context of school when communicating about school subjects,” which differ from the choices one would make while speaking at home or informal settings (Scheele, 2012, 419). This is significant as it is becoming increasingly expected for students to already be familiar with the academic language patterns and vocabulary before even entering the school building. Just as with language as a whole, children of higher SES backgrounds are more likely to be exposed to academic language from an early age, and this in turn contributes to the gap in academic achievement found between SES groups. 

Fortunately, researchers are developing interventions to improve language exposure for children, and have applied these practices to a various cultural and economic familial settings. The most common of these interventions seems to focus on shared book reading, a practice of parents and children reading a book together, often incorporating some act of discussion of the book’s contents (Brandone, 2006; Dickinson, et al., 2012). These interventions are easier in countries with sufficient reading and learning materials, though more difficult for nations with fewer resources, or with high linguistic diversity. One such program in the United Kingdom provided books to parents and observed increases in children’s acquisition of reading and mathematics skills (Dickinson, et al., 2012). Many diverse nations lack the infrastructure to produce academic texts in all local languages, though a number of studies argue that this investment is cost effective in the long term, in terms of improving academic achievement and retention, as well as reducing drop out rates (Vawda & Patrinos, 1999). As an intern with Chemonics, I participated on a project in the Republic of Georgia, with the goal of improving primary school literacy in a mother tongue-based education program. In addition to the primary goal of improving teacher training and cooperation, the project team also worked to create new reading materials in the local languages by working with local authors and encouraging a new trend of writing for children. The need for this new trend illustrates the different cultural ideals of children as targets for conversation and reading.

It is important, when attempting to improve access to education and learning to remember that education does not begin when a child enters the schoolroom for the first time. A large impact in lifelong academic achievement is based initially in the language and literacy exposure a child has from the day they are born, and thus pre-primary interventions are necessary to level the playing field, and provide low-income or second language students in any country with sufficient exposure to literacy and academic language that they are able to enter school in a position to learn and compete with their more privileged peers. This can be done by interventions to change parents’ (especially mothers’) behaviors (Landry, et al., 2011) or through training pre-primary teachers practices (Dickinson, 2011). However it is achieved—and research continues to investigate effective methods—it is equally important to realize this is not just a situation in the United States, where the majority of research has been centered. It is an issue across the world, and remains most prevalent among disadvantaged populations.

Works Cited

Brandone et. al. (2006), Language Development (pp. 499 – 504).

Dickinson, D.K. (2011). Teachers’ language practices and academic outcomes of preschool children. Science, 333, 964 – 967.

Dickinson, Griffith, Golinkoff & Hirsh‐Pasek (2012). How Reading Books Fosters Language Development Around the World, Child Development Research, 2012, Article ID 602807. http://www.hindawi.com/journals/cdr/2012/602807/.

Farah, M. et. al., (2006). Childhood poverty: Specific associations with neurocognitive development. Brain Research, 166‐174.

Fernald, A., et al. (2013). "SES differences in language processing skill and vocabulary are evident at 18months." Developmental Science 16(2): 234‐248.

Hoff, E. (2006). "How social contexts support and shape language development." Developmental Review 26(1): 55‐88.

Landry, S. H., et al. (2012). "The Effects of a Responsive Parenting Intervention on Parent‐Child Interactions During Shared Book Reading." Developmental Psychology 48(4): 969‐986.

Leseman, P. P. M. and C. v. Tuijl (2006). Cultural diversity in early literacy: Findings from Dutch Studies. Handbook of early literacy research Vol. 2. D. K. Dickinson and S. B. Neuman. New York, Guilford. II: 211 – 228.

Scheele, A. F., et al. (2012). "The Relation of Home Language and Literacy to Three‐Year‐Old Children's Emergent Academic Language in Narrative and Instruction Genres." The Elementary School Journal 112(3): 419‐444.

Vawda, A.Y. & Patrinos, H.A. (1999). Producing educational materials in local languages: costs from Guatemala and Senegal. International Journal of Educational Development 19(1). 287-299.

van Kleeck, A. (2006). Cultural issues in promoting interactive book sharing in the families of preschoolers. Sharing books and stories to promote language and literacy. A. Van Kleeck. San Diego, Plural: 179 – 230