Influence of Early Language Exposure on Children's Cognitive and Language Development

Purpose:

Early childhood represents a critical period for brain development, in which foundations for later learning are established. Brain development is shaped through environmental experiences, including language exposure and parental engagement. Research shows that low-income children hear 30 million less words than their more affluent peers by the age of 4, and that this word gap contributes to disparities in their educational outcomes. As interventions aimed at bridging the word gap develop, literature should be evaluated to examine the influence of early language exposure on children’s neurodevelopment.

Methods:

An integrated review of literature was conducted to evaluate the effect of parental engagement (talking, reading, and interacting) in early childhood (0-3 years) on children’s language or cognitive development. The following search terms were used: (infant OR newborn OR toddler) AND (infant-directed speech OR child-directed speech OR talk OR OR read OR engage OR interact OR conversation) AND (parent OR caregiver) AND (literacy OR language acquisition OR vocabulary OR cognition OR academic OR language development OR neurodevelopmental outcomes). Articles published from 1990-2014 were identified through PubMed, Web of Science, and CINAHL databases. Reference lists of identified articles were manually searched for additional eligible articles not detected by the electronic search. For inclusion, the articles had to meet the following criteria: 1) report the effect of talking, reading, or interacting 2) children had to be 0-36 months old at the first or all assessments 3) evaluate vocabulary, language, or cognitive outcomes 4) be a primary-research article, secondary data analysis, meta-analysis, or systematic review 5) be in a peer-reviewed journal.

Results:

Of the 1273 articles identified, 109 articles met the search criteria. Studies revealed that the number of words spoken to a child, but not overheard speech, is associated with better scores on vocabulary and cognitive assessments and enhanced language processing. Furthermore, diversity of words, grammatical complexity, number of conversational turns, engagement in joint attention and greater use of imitations, expansions, interpretations, and gestures are related to expressive and receptive language skills and moderate the association between social risks and cognitive outcomes. In addition, children who are read to more frequently have larger vocabularies and maternal responsiveness and father involvement positively influence language and cognitive development. Interestingly, the positive effects of talking, reading, and interacting are more pronounced in children with or at-risk for developmental delays.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the quantity and quality of talking, reading, and interacting with a child in the first three years of life predict language and cognitive development. As a result, interventions aimed at increasing the quality and quantity of early language exposure and promoting parental engagement have the potential to leverage dramatic results for children’s developmental outcomes and future educational success.