Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children

in relation to demographic factors, mother and

child characteristics, communication style and
shared reading
M. Westerlund* and D. Lagerberg*
*Department of Womens and Childrens Health, Section for Paediatrics, Uppsala University, Childrens Hospital, and
Central Unit for Child Health Care, Childrens Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden
Accepted for publication 2 September 2007
Keywords
communication,
expressive vocabulary,
maternal report, reading,
screening
Correspondence:
Monica Westerlund,
Assistant Professor,
Central unit for child
health care, Uppsala
county, Childrens
Hospital, SE-751 85
Uppsala, Sweden
E-mail:
monica.westerlund@
akademiska.se
Abstract
Background Previous research has elucidated the associations between childrens language
development and reading habits, and maternal education, communication style, gender and birth
order. Research including maternal age and child temperament is more scarce. We studied the
associations of all these factors with childrens expressive vocabulary and reading habits. We also
analysed the relationships of reading with expressive vocabulary, and effect sizes associated with
frequent reading.
Methods Questionnaires were completed by mothers of 1091 children aged 1719 months
visiting the Swedish Child Health Services. Expressive vocabulary was assessed by the Swedish
Communication Screening at 18 months, a screening version of McArthur-Bates Communicative
Development Inventories. Mothers perception of ability to communicate was measured by a scale
constructed ad hoc from the International Child Development Programmes, a parent education
curriculum. Bates difcultness scale was used to assess temperament.
Results Good communication, low maternal age, female gender and frequent reading were
signicantly associated with expressive vocabulary. High maternal education, good communication,
higher maternal age, female gender and being a rst-born child were signicantly associated with
frequent reading. Reading at least 6 times/week added more than 0.3 SD in vocabulary regardless
of gender and communication.
Conclusions The ndings support the importance of reading and communication quality to early
language development. Knowledge of the relationship between childrens vocabulary and book
reading in a context of joint attention is both theoretically and practically valuable to speech and
language pathologists, pre-school teachers, child health workers and other professionals.
Introduction
Our present society makes heavy demands on the linguistic
ability of the population, both native and immigrant. Poor mas-
tering of a countrys majority language is a great psychosocial
disadvantage not solely for children growing up with a minority
language. Young children are strongly programmed for com-
munication. It is important to make the most of this and of the
Original Article doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2007.00801.x
2008 The Authors
Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 257
plasticity of the young human brain indicating a high learning
potential in the early years of life.
Some maternal factors related to child language
Many studies have elucidated the strong link between socio-
economic status (SES) and childrens verbal abilities (e.g. Born-
stein et al. 1998; Hoff-Ginsberg 1998; Locke et al. 2002). Core
factors often applied in denitions of SES are education, occu-
pation and income. As for early language development, the most
inuential SES component seems to be education, particularly
maternal education, as the mother tends to be intensively
involved in daily interactions offering rich opportunities for
conversation.
The importance of SES appears to be mediated by commu-
nication style (Bornstein et al. 1998; Landry et al. 2002; Hoff &
Tian 2005), e.g. the amount and complexity of verbal commu-
nication available to the child (Hart & Risley 1995). Inviting the
child to take part in conversations, describing and explaining
what is around are activities likely to expand concept formation
and linguistic capacity (Manolson 1992; Girolametto et al.
1999). Low-SES mothers have been found to approach their
children with many directives not linked to the childs current
interest, as well as with requests calling for an expected response
(Hoff-Ginsberg 1991). According to Landry and colleagues
(2002), they may also use so-called empty language (this and
that instead of more specic language).
Maternal age can be hypothesized to inuence childs lan-
guage directly, perhaps because older mothers may be more
patient and talk more with their children, or because, con-
versely, they are more tired than younger mothers, thus talking
less with them. Pan and colleagues (2004) found no signicant
associations of maternal age with child language at age 2.
However, this study involved low-income families only, which
may have restricted the potential scope for variations by mater-
nal age.
Some child factors related to language
Girls language development is usually ahead of boys (e.g.
Bornstein & Haynes 1998; Locke et al. 2002). A slight female
advantage explaining between 1% and 3% of the variance was
reported from two large-scale studies of children aged
830 months (Fenson et al. 1994; Galsworthy et al. 2000). A
Swedish study of more than 1000 children showed signicant
differences in favour of girls verbal comprehension and pro-
duction (Berglund et al. 2005).
First-born children are usually verbally ahead of later-born
children at least in the early years (Fenson et al. 1994;
Hoff-Ginsberg 1998; Berglund et al. 2005). The association is
explained as being mediated by the mothers way of talking to
their children. Mothers of rst-borns have been found to make
more explicit attempts at eliciting language from their toddlers
than mothers of later-born children (Jones & Adamson 1987).
Few studies have addressed specic associations between
language development and childrens temperament. However,
according to Dixon and Smith (2000), mothers ratings of their
toddlers attention were related to language production. This
was later veried in a study by Karrass and colleagues (2002).
Some factors related to book reading with young children
As pointed out by Scarborough and Dobrich (1994), children
from lower-class families are usually read to less often than
children from higher-SES families (Bornstein et al. 1998; Hoff-
Ginsberg 1998; Locke et al. 2002). However, Roberts and col-
leagues (2005) maintained that mothers education was only
mildly correlated with frequency of shared reading, and Kuo
and colleagues (2004) found indications of low reading fre-
quencies even in better-off families.
Communication style is probably related to reading prefer-
ences in families of young children. Shared reading may be a
marker of a generally stimulating environment (Karrass et al.
2003). If so, parents most disposed to attend to their childrens
verbal and non-verbal signals in settings other than reading
would also be the ones most inclined to read frequently with
them.
As far as is known by the authors, no study has explored a
possible association between mothers age and shared reading.
However, an association might be hypothesized between paren-
tal views of the importance of linguistic stimulation and mater-
nal age.
Provided that girls are linguistically ahead of boys, and
parents modify their reading habits to the childs verbal ability,
then one could expect mothers to read more with their daugh-
ters. However, according to some studies, reading with young
children does not differ between the genders (High et al. 1999;
Roberts et al. 2005).
As to birth order, Kuo and colleagues (2004) found differing
odds for daily reading depending on whether the child was an
only child or not. Children with siblings were read to more
seldom.
The relation between child temperament (attention) and
book reading has been studied by Karrass and colleagues (2003)
in middle-class families with 8-month-old children. No associa-
258 M. Westerlund and D. Lagerberg
2008 The Authors
Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257266
tion was found between mothers book reading and the childs
temperament, whereas fathers read more with their fussy chil-
dren than with their quiet ones.
Shared reading and language development
Already in the late eighties, Whitehurst and colleagues (1988)
showed book reading to be associated with an increased
vocabulary in children. Since then, several researchers have
highlighted the importance of shared reading with young
children (Golova et al. 1999; High et al. 2000; Whitehurst &
Lonigan 2001). In the light of growing evidence that parent
child reading activities represent a particularly rich source of
verbal interactions (e.g. Hoff-Ginsberg 1991), several book-
giving projects have been implemented (for a review, see Klass
et al. 2003), some of which have been subject of evaluation
studies. High and colleagues (2000) found signicant increases
in both receptive and expressive language for children of
18 months and older, whose parents had received childrens
books, educational materials and advice about sharing books.
Hoff-Ginsberg (1991) studied mothers and their 1829-
month-old toddlers in four settings (mealtime, dressing,
reading and toy play). Differences between the less contingent
speech among lower-class mothers compared with that of
middle-class mothers were considerably minimized in the
reading situation. These ndings stress the importance of
reading as a means to language acquisition.
Even if communication and reading habits work very much
in the same direction, it may nevertheless be the case that both
make independent contributions to childrens language devel-
opment. This matter, among others, will be dealt with in the
following.
Methods
Aims of the study
The present study examined cross-sectional associations with
expressive vocabulary and with reading habits of the following
factors: maternal education (as a marker of SES), communi-
cation style, maternal age, child gender, birth order and
difcultness (as an aspect of temperament). The association of
reading habits with childrens language development was also
explored.
Participants
This paper drew on data from an extensive study of two cohorts
of children (born September 2000August 2001 and April
2003March 2004) who visited their Child Health Centres
(CHC), situated in six different counties of Sweden, for an
18-month check-up (Sundelin et al. 2005).
Of 2179 children invited to participate, the mothers of 1541
(70.7%) completed the questionnaire. Twins (n = 48) and chil-
dren outside the age range of 18 1 month were excluded. The
study population thus consisted of 1091 children (17 months
n = 66, 18 months n = 625 and 19 months n = 400). There
were 546 boys and 545 girls, of whom 45.9% were rst-born
children. As participation in Swedish child health services is
almost 100% (Magnusson 1997), the study can be considered
population-based.
Swedish mothers dominated the material (84%). All mothers,
irrespectively of national origin, were included.
The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committees
of the universities involved (Dnr Ups 01342).
Procedure and questionnaire
When visiting the CHCs for their childrens 18-month check-
up, the mothers were invited to participate. Upon acceptance,
they were given a questionnaire and a post-free return enve-
lope. Help by interpreters was offered to non-Swedish-
speaking mothers. The questionnaire included, among others,
questions about demographic characteristics, reading with the
child and the mothers perception of the childs temperament.
The mothers were also asked to rate the quality of their
communication with the child as well as the childs current
vocabulary.
Description of variables
Maternal education (four categories, ordinal scale): primary
school or lower, 2 years of secondary school, 34 years of sec-
ondary school and university/college.
Mothers communication: the scale was constructed ad hoc on
the basis of themes from the International Child Develop-
ment Programmes, a parent education curriculum(Hundeide
1996). Items:
To what extent do you think you are good enough to:
be aware of the childs needs and wishes; communicate with
the child about things that catch his/her interest; encourage
the child; help the child to give attention to things and events
around; describe to the child what you experience together;
explain to the child what you experience together? There were
ve scores: 1 (very little), 2 (rather little), 3 (moderately), 4
(rather much) and 5 (very much). Total score was calculated
Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children 259
2008 The Authors
Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257266
as the means of all items. Scale dimensionality was good
(Cronbachs alpha: 0.92). Dichotomized into high (>mean for
whole sample) and low (mean) for bivariate analyses and
calculations of effect sizes; continuous variable in multiple
regression analyses.
Maternal age (year of birth) when completing the question-
naire (ve categories for univariate and bivariate analyses;
continuous variable in multiple regression analyses).
The childs gender and birth order dichotomized into male/
female and rst-born or not.
The childs difcultness according to Bates (Bates et al. 1979):
mothers mean score on nine items ranging from 1 (low dif-
cultness) to 7 (high difcultness). The mother is encouraged
to compare her child with an imagined average child. Items
deal with easinessdifculty to calm the child, irritability,
crying, temper, etc. Scale dimensionality was good (Cron-
bachs alpha: 0.83). Dichotomized into low (<mean for whole
sample) and high (mean) for bivariate analyses; continuous
variable in multiple regression analyses.
Shared book reading (ve categories, ordinal scale): How many
times, per week, do you or someone else in the family look in
a book together with your child (10 or more times, 69 times,
35 times, 12 times, or never)? Dichotomized into <6 times/
week and 6 times/week for some bivariate analyses (Table 4)
and for calculations of effect sizes.
The childs expressive vocabulary (continuous variable):
Number of spoken words marked by the mother on a check-
list of 90 common words. This instrument, SCS18, is a screen-
ing version of the Swedish Communicative Development
Inventories (Eriksson & Berglund 1999; Berglund & Eriksson
2000), which in turn is a Swedish adaptation of the
MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories
(Fenson et al. 1993). The psychometric properties of the
Swedish screening version (SCS18) have been analysed,
showing high internal consistency, high testretest reliability
and strong associations with the corresponding scores from
the complete Swedish battery (for details and a verbatim
English translation of the questionnaire, see Eriksson et al.
2002).
Statistical analyses and methods
When there were missing values in a particular variable, the
child in question was excluded from the analyses. n values thus
varied and amounted to between 1039 and 1083 (out of totally
1091). Differences between percentages were signicance tested
with the c
2
method, and differences between means with the
analysis of variance (anova) procedure and Students t-test. To
control for independent variables, multiple linear regression
analyses with standardized beta weights were performed. Effect
sizes were calculated using Cohens d with weighted SDs. Effect
sizes are intended to express clinical relevance, with 1 corre-
sponding to one standard deviation. An effect of 0.8 is generally
considered large, an effect size of 0.5 as medium and a size of 0.2
as small (Kirk 1996). Analyses were performed with the SAS
package for personal computers (SAS Institute Inc. 1987).
P-values below 0.05 were accepted as signicant.
Results
The accuracy of the verbal checklist method was supported by
the ndings, showing an almost perfect gradient by age. Thus
the mean number and maximum of spoken words were 25.2
and 76, respectively, in the youngest children (17 months), 28.3
and 84 in the 18-month olds, and 31.7 and 87 in the oldest
group (19 months).
Means, SDs and frequencies are shown in Tables 1 and 2.
Mothers were quite satised with their communication with
the child: the average score exceeded 4 corresponding to rather
much. Child difcultness lay in the middle of the scale corre-
sponding to an average child. The mean number of words
expressed by the children was 29 out of the 90 words of the
SCS18. As shown in Table 2, 105 mothers (9.6%) were low-
educated at most, nished primary school whereas more
than 2/5 had a college or university education. Frequent reading
(6 times/week) was reported for 65.9% of the children,
whereas 14.4% were read to more seldom (02 times/week).
About 15% of the mothers were below 25 or above 39 years of
age.
Tables 3 and 4 show bivariate relationships between the inde-
pendent variables maternal education, communication, mater-
nal age, child gender, child birth order and child difcultness,
and the dependent variables expressive vocabulary (Table 3)
and shared reading (Table 4). In Table 3, shared reading has
been added among the independent variables, thus displaying
its association with vocabulary.
Table 1. Means (M), standard deviations (SD) and ranges for
communication, child difcultness and expressive vocabulary
Variable n* M SD Range
Communication 1077 4.15 0.64 1.005.00
Difcultness 1089 3.55 0.83 1.006.33
Expressive vocabulary 1067 29.4 20.5 087
Total n = 1091.
*Varying ns are due to missing values.
High scores are favourable.
Low scores are favourable.
260 M. Westerlund and D. Lagerberg
2008 The Authors
Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257266
There was no signicant association between maternal edu-
cation and child vocabulary (Table 3). On the other hand, there
was a steep and highly signicant increase in reading frequency
with rising maternal education (Table 4). Children whose
mothers felt they communicated well with them had a signi-
cantly larger expressive vocabulary and participated signi-
cantly more in reading than other children. The same was true
for girls and rst-born children as related to boys and later-
borns respectively. There were no signicant associations for
either vocabulary or frequent reading with child difcultness.
Frequent reading was strongly and signicantly related to
expressive vocabulary (Table 3).
Multiple linear regression analyses
Table 5 shows the results of a multiple linear regression analysis
with expressive vocabulary as the dependent variable. Both
genders were pooled together.
The model explained 12.91% of the variance (d.f. = 7,
F = 22.98, P < 0.0001). The most important factor was the
childs gender (girl), followed by shared reading (frequent) and
perceived communication (good) (all P-values < 0.0001). There
was also a signicant but weaker contribution by maternal age
(low, P = 0.0052). Maternal education, birth order and child
difcultness did not contribute signicantly to expressive
vocabulary, controlling for other independent variables. The
signicant association from the bivariate analysis with birth
order thus disappeared, and a signicant association with
maternal age emerged when this variable was entered as a con-
tinuous scale. Repeating the analysis for boys and girls sepa-
rately, the same variables yielded signicant associations, except
for the association with maternal age in girls. The model
explained 9.65% of the variance among boys, and 5.44% of the
variance among girls (data not shown).
The results of a multiple linear regression analysis using
shared reading as the dependent variable are shown in Table 6
with both genders pooled together.
The model explained 16.88% of the variance (d.f. = 6,
F = 36.88, P < 0.0001). The strongest association, controlling
for other variables, appeared for communication: mothers
who perceived their communicative capacity to be good
tended to read more with their children. Children of highly
educated mothers and rst-born children participated more
in shared reading. There was a positive signicant association
between reading and maternal age as a continuous variable (all
P-values < 0.0001). Finally, the signicant association with
gender (girls) remained after controlling for other indepen-
dent variables (P = 0.0006). Analysing boys and girls sepa-
rately, the same independent variables as for the two genders
pooled together showed signicant associations with reading.
The model explained 17.01% of the variance among boys and
15.49% of the variance among girls (data not shown).
Effect sizes
In order to convey an idea of the potential impact of reading on
expressive vocabulary, given variations in gender and perceived
communication, effect sizes are presented in Table 7. Effect size
should be interpreted as the proportion of one SD added to
expressive vocabulary by frequent book reading, i.e. at least 6
times/week.
Boys whose mothers judged their communication as less
than good and who were not frequently read to reached a
mean of 17.8 words, to be compared with 23.8 for comparable
boys who were frequently read to, a difference of 0.35 SD. Girls
with a good communication had an expressive vocabulary
of 31.6 words if they participated less frequently in shared
reading, and 38.2 words if they were read to 6 times per week
or more (0.32 SD). In general, frequent reading was associated
with a gain in expressive vocabulary of about 0.4 SD (an
Table 2. Frequencies for maternal education, maternal age, child gender,
child birth order and shared reading
Independent variable n %
Maternal education
Primary or less 105 9.6
Secondary: 2 years 188 17.2
Secondary: 3 or 4 years 313 28.7
College or university 476 43.6
Information missing 9 0.8
Maternal age
1824 84 7.7
2529 255 23.4
3034 396 36.3
3539 270 24.7
4048 79 7.2
Information missing 7 0.6
Child gender
Boys 546 50.0
Girls 545 50.0
Child birth order
First-born 501 45.9
Later-born 590 54.1
Shared reading
10 or more times/week 464 42.5
69 times/week 255 23.4
35 times/week 207 19.0
12 times/week 133 12.2
Never 24 2.2
Information missing 8 0.7
Total 1091 100
Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children 261
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Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257266
almost medium effect size). The largest increases occurred for
boys with a good communication and for girls with a less than
good communication.
Discussion
Main ndings
Good communication quality, low maternal age, female gender
and frequent reading were signicantly and independently
associated with childrens expressive vocabulary. High maternal
education, good communication quality, higher maternal age,
female gender and being a rst-born child was signicantly and
independently associated with frequent reading. Reading at
least 6 times/week added more than 0.3 SD in vocabulary,
regardless of gender and communication. Child difcultness
showed no associations with either vocabulary or reading.
Comments
In line with some earlier studies (Pan et al. 2004; Berglund
et al. 2005), but contrary to international studies of somewhat
older children (Hoff-Ginsberg 1998; High et al. 2000), there
were no signicant differences in vocabulary between children
of higher- and lower-educated mothers. The association
between SES and vocabulary gets stronger in course of time
(e.g. Hoff-Ginsberg 1998; Landry et al. 2002), and the children
studied here were only 1719 months old. Another possible
explanation could lie in the relatively equal social conditions
in Sweden. Furthermore, according to other data from our
extensive study, higher-educated mothers found their total
workload to be heavier and their tasks more conicting than
lower-eduacted mothers did, possibly resulting in reduced
opportunities for conversation. Highly educated mothers may
cultivate more demanding attitudes, both with regard to their
Table 3. Expressive vocabulary by maternal
education, communication, maternal age,
child gender, child birth order, child
difcultness and shared reading.
Independent variable
Dependent variable: expressive vocabulary
n Mean SD Range P
Maternal education (d.f. = 3) 0.1628
Primary or less 103 26.8 21.8 080
Secondary: 2 years 185 29.8 20.9 086
Secondary: 3 or 4 years 306 31.4 20.4 084
College or university 465 28.6 20.0 087
Communication* <0.0001
Score >mean 555 32.2 20.5 087
Score mean 500 26.1 19.8 084
Maternal age (d.f. = 4) 0.1501
1824 83 32.3 21.3 079
2529 250 31.2 20.5 086
3034 388 28.8 19.7 085
3539 263 27.3 21.4 084
4048 76 29.1 20.0 287
Child gender <0.0001
Boys 533 24.3 18.7 086
Girls 534 34.4 20.9 087
Child birth order 0.0021
First-born 493 31.4 20.8 086
Later-born 574 27.6 20.1 087
Child difcultness 0.0934
Score <mean 495 30.5 20.9 087
Score mean 571 28.4 20.1 086
Shared reading (d.f. = 4) <0.0001
10 or more times/week 452 34.3 21.1 087
69 times/week 252 29.3 19.5 086
35 times/week 205 24.6 18.8 085
12 times/week 130 22.0 17.9 080
Never 22 14.0 14.4 064
Total 1067 29.4 20.5 087
Signicance tests by analysis of variance and Students t-test. Observations with missing values excluded.
*High scores are favourable.
Low scores are favourable.
262 M. Westerlund and D. Lagerberg
2008 The Authors
Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257266
childrens vocabulary and to the correctness of their own
assessments.
The SES in terms of maternal education turned out to be
closely associated with reading frequency. This was not quite in
line with the results of Kuo and colleagues (2004), who found
that even among less underprivileged families, reading with
young children was rather infrequent.
Mothers communication showed the strongest association
with shared reading. Karrass and colleagues (2003) have specu-
lated that mothers with a good communication also are the ones
most frequently reading to their children. This hypothesis was
supported by our ndings.
To our knowledge, our study is the only one analysing a
possible connection between mothers age and frequent
reading with children. The proportion frequently read to
reached a peak in maternal age group 3034, after which it
re-declined (Table 4, not signicant). When entered as a con-
tinuous variable in the multiple regression analysis, however,
maternal age resulted in a signicant positive association with
reading (Table 6).
Table 4. Shared reading by maternal
education, communication, maternal age,
child gender, child birth order and child
difcultness
Independent variable
Dependent variable: shared reading
n <6 times/week 6 times/week P
Maternal education (d.f. = 3) <0.0001
Primary or less 103 57.3 42.7
Secondary: 2 years 186 37.6 62.4
Secondary: 3 or 4 years 310 38.4 61.6
College or university 476 23.3 76.7
Communication (d.f. = 1)* <0.0001
Score >mean 569 24.4 75.6
Score mean 506 43.5 56.5
Maternal age (d.f. = 4) 0.2035
1824 82 37.8 62.2
2529 251 37.8 62.2
3034 396 29.5 70.5
3539 269 33.5 66.5
4048 79 36.7 63.3
Child gender (d.f. = 1) 0.0033
Boys 542 37.8 62.2
Girls 541 29.4 70.6
Child birth order (d.f. = 1) <0.0001
First-born 497 23.5 76.5
Later-born 586 42.2 57.8
Child difcultness (d.f. = 1) 0.7420
Score <mean 504 33.1 66.9
Score mean 578 34.1 65.9
Total 1083 33.6 66.4
Signicance tests by c
2
. Observations with missing values excluded.
*High scores are favourable.
Low scores are favourable.
Table 5. Multiple regression analysis with expressive vocabulary as the dependent variable
Independent variable Parameter estimate Standard error
Standardized
estimate (b) t value Pr > t
Intercept 3.47395 6.76897 0 0.51 0.6079
Maternal education -0.41864 0.62275 -0.02048 -0.67 0.5016
Communication 4.69543 1.00254 0.14635 4.68 <0.0001
Maternal age -0.36580 0.13048 -0.09346 -2.80 0.0052
Child gender 9.05455 1.19637 0.22177 7.57 <0.0001
Child birth order -1.10198 1.38998 -0.02692 -0.79 0.4281
Child difcultness 0.37965 0.74420 0.01533 0.51 0.6101
Shared reading 3.57932 0.57869 0.19639 6.19 <0.0001
Both genders pooled together.
n = 1039. Adjusted R
2
= 0.1291, d.f. = 7, F = 22.98, P < 0.0001.
Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children 263
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Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257266
Contrary to the associationbetweenage and frequent reading,
the relationbetweenmaternal age and expressive vocabulary was
negative: younger mothers, who apparently read less with their
children, reported more words spoken by their children. The
explanation given by the regression analyses lies in the fact that
reading produced an additional contribution to word produc-
tion after controlling for maternal age and other independent
variables. It remains to be explained why the associationbetween
child vocabulary and maternal age was negative, contrary to
ndings reported by Pan and colleagues (2004). Mothers in their
study were younger, however, than those included in our present
sample (mean 23 years vs. 32 years). Younger mothers might be
more eager to feel proud of their children and may energetically
search for signs of progress in their offspring.
Contrary to the ndings of High and colleagues (1999),
Karrass and colleagues (2003), and Roberts and colleagues
(2005), we found girls to be signicantly more involved in
reading than boys (Tables 4 & 6). This does not appear to have
been shown in earlier research.
A nding contrary to earlier studies (Hoff-Ginsberg 1998;
Berglund et al. 2005) was the non-signicant difference in
vocabulary between rst- and later-born children in the present
study when controlling for other independent variables
(Table 5). Apparently, the difference was explained by these
other factors.
Methodological considerations
It remains a matter of concern that the background and
outcome variables were not independent, all data being col-
lected by maternal self-report. Self-report bias cannot be
excluded. If, for instance, mothers who reported frequent shared
reading also tended to overestimate systematically the quality of
their communication with the children, the strong association
between communication and reading would be largely spuri-
ous, as would the relation between communiction and vocabu-
lary. We have had no possibility, in the present study, to
safeguard against this.
On the other hand, certain variables were of a hard kind that
should not cause great concern about reliability, i.e. year of birth,
education, gender andbirthorder. Furthermore, the difcultness
scale applied is a well-tried and widely used instrument. The
SCS18 has shown good psychometric properties. The commu-
nication instrument, it is true, was developed ad hoc
Table 6. Multiple regression analysis with shared reading as the dependent variable
Independent variable Parameter estimate Standard error
Standardized
estimate (b) t value Pr > t
Intercept 0.28618 0.35867 0 0.80 0.4251
Maternal education 0.22957 0.03254 0.20299 7.05 <0.0001
Communication 0.42597 0.05182 0.24125 8.22 <0.0001
Maternal age 0.02756 0.00688 0.12733 4.00 <0.0001
Child gender 0.21939 0.06348 0.09734 3.46 0.0006
Child birth order 0.44216 0.07264 0.19559 6.09 <0.0001
Child difcultness -0.00458 0.03959 -0.00335 -0.12 0.9080
Both genders pooled together.
n = 1061. Adjusted R
2
= 0.1688, d.f. = 6, F = 36.88, P < 0.0001.
Table 7. Mean sizes of expressive vocabulary for combinations of child gender and mothers perceived communication, given that shared reading did
or did not occur six or more times/week
Child gender and mothers
perceived communication
Shared reading <6
times/week
Shared reading 6
times/week
t P Effect size* n Mean n Mean
Boys
Communication less than good, mean 114 17.8 132 23.8 -2.72 0.0071 0.35
Communication good, >mean 83 21.4 198 30.0 -3.84 0.0002 0.46
Girls
Communication less than good, mean 102 25.6 150 35.2 -3.65 0.0003 0.47
Communication good, >mean 53 31.6 221 38.2 -2.12 0.0350 0.32
Effect sizes calculated as Cohens d with weighted SDs. Effect size 1 = one SD. Total n = boys: 546, girls: 545 (38 observations with missing values excluded).
*0.8 large, 0.5 medium and 0.2 small.
264 M. Westerlund and D. Lagerberg
2008 The Authors
Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257266
but showed a high alpha value (0.92). The variable measuring
shared reading has not been tested as to reliability or validity and
could be inaccurate. This is a shortcoming of the present study,
but one that could hardly have been avoided, as it seems.
The present sample included a certain proportion of
immigrant families. We cannot tell whether these mothers
understood the SCS18 in the same way as Swedish mothers did.
As pointed out by Kaplan and Bennett (2003), analyses based on
ethnicity may not always be relevant to the question under
study. In the case of linguistic matters, however, this does not
seem to be true. Families stemming from other cultures may
have different reading and conversation habits from those of the
majority population, differences possibly inuencing our
results in uncontrolled ways. The proportion of immigrants was
rather small, however, and it was not feasible to make further
classications by ethnicity.
It must be stressed that the present cross-sectional study did
not permit conclusions about causes and effects. For instance, it
was found that girls were more often read to and had a more
advanced vocabulary than boys. Whether this was because of
frequent reading or whether mothers read more to girls because
of their richer vocabulary cannot be determined. In the same
vein, the termeffect size should not be taken to imply any effect
proper, but is used here for convenience, being an established
expression.
The proportion of the variance explained by the regression
analyses amounted to no more than 13% for expressive vocabu-
lary and 17% for shared reading. Proportions of these magni-
tudes are not uncommon in social research. However, explained
variances of the sizes found may be quite considerable if viewed
from a public health perspective. Even small improvements of
only a few per cent in reading and vocabulary may be very
substantial at the population level.
Conclusions
The paramount ndings of this study were the strong associa-
tions of communication quality with both expressive vocabu-
lary and reading frequency, and of reading frequency with
vocabulary in addition to the contribution of communica-
tion. Contrary to age, education, gender and birth order,
reading and communication style are open to inuence and
change. Parents of young children are highly motivated to
receive information that may benet their childs development.
Stimulating parents to observe, comment upon and encourage
the childs talking as well as reading together appears to be a
highly relevant task for speech pathologists and professionals in
educational settings, healthcare services and other activities
reaching parents and children. While awaiting more studies to
establish a causal relationship, we still wish to emphasize the
importance of our ndings. Good communication and frequent
reading give fuel to childrens language development, emergent
literacy and later reading skill.
Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the Swedish Council for Working
Life and Social Research, the county council of Uppsala, the
Gillberg Foundation and Allmnna Barnhuset. Sincere thanks
are due to all experiment and control nurses for their interest in
the study andfor their generous contributionintime andefforts.
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