Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2005, 46, 485 –491

Development and Aging

Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.

Communicative skills in relation to gender, birth order, childcare and

socioeconomic status in 18-month-old children
EVA BERGLUND,1 MÅRTEN ERIKSSON2 and MONICA WESTERLUND1
1
Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden
2
University of Gävle, Sweden

Berglund, E., Eriksson, M. & Westerlund, M. (2005). Communicative skills in relation to gender, birth order, childcare and SES in 18-month-
old children. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 46, 485 – 491.
Variation in communicative skills, defined as gestures, vocabulary comprehension and vocabulary production, was examined as a function of
gender, birth order, childcare and socioeconomic status (SES) in 1,019 18-month-old children. The children were recruited at their regular
check-up at a number of randomly selected Child Health Care centers in a Swedish county. The participation rate was 88%. The children were
assessed by their mothers using a short version of the Swedish Early Communicative Development Inventories. The results demonstrate
significant effects of gender and birth order on vocabulary comprehension and vocabulary production. Girls scored higher than boys and first-
born children scored higher than later-born children. Type of childcare (family care, care at home and day-care centers) interacted with gender
and birth order on vocabulary production and indicated that family care is not as advantageous as care at home or at day-care centers. SES
had no effect on children’s communicative skills at this age.
Key words: Gender, birth order, childcare, SES, CDI.
Eva Berglund, Department of Nursing Research and Development, Uppsala University Hospital, S-751 85 Uppsala, Sweden . E-mail:
evaberglund@safe-mail.net

INTRODUCTION related to the year of publication, where the difference

It is important to identify factors that affect the acquisition
of language. This study examines if and how gender, birth
order, socioeconomic status (SES) and childcare have an
influence on early communicative skills, more specifically on
gestures, vocabulary comprehension and vocabulary produc-
tion. The influences of these four demographic factors have
been the subject of numerous studies. The present study
contributes to this knowledge in two ways. First, by studying
all four demographic factors simultaneously in a descriptive
study, the relative contribution of each factor on children’s
communicative skills can be depicted. Second, the influence
of these demographic factors is likely to vary between differ-
ent cultures and societal organizations. Most studies have
focused on English-speaking children, in particular in the
United States. The present study concerns Swedish-speaking
children. Data were collected in a project on population
screening of communicative skills in 18-month-old children
in collaboration with Child Health Care (CHC) nurses. Com-
municative skills were assessed by means of parental reports.
Gender
Studies on gender differences in verbal ability are inconclu-
sive. Hyde and Linn (1988) performed a meta-analysis of 165
studies and concluded that the overall female advantage was
negligible. In addition, the authors found a significant effect
between girls and boys was smaller in more recently published
studies. This review was limited to studies in Canada and the
United States and did not include studies of children below
the age of 3 years. In a large sample of over 1,800 US chil-
dren aged 8–30 months Fenson, Dale, Reznick, Bates, Thal
and Pethick (1994) reported a slight female advantage on the
MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories
(MCDI), explaining about 1–2% of the variance. Galasworthy,
Dionne, Dale and Plomin (2000) used the same instruments
in a sample of over 3,000 2-year-old twins born in England and
Wales. They found a female advantage, accounting for about
3% of the variance. Two studies on Swedish-speaking children
(the Swedish version of the CDI instruments was used) did
not find any differences between girls and boys for vocabulary
comprehension or vocabulary production (Eriksson &
Berglund, 1999; Berglund & Eriksson, 2000). However, in
Eriksson and Berglund (1999) a small female advantage was
observed at the first sub-scale (“first communicative gestures
sub-scale”) of the gesture scales. In sum, differences between
girls and boys in the first years in verbal ability might vary
as a function of different ages, times and cultures. When
differences are found, it is commonly in favor of the girls.
Birth order
In contrast to first-born infants, later-borns have to compete
with their older siblings for their mother’s attention. This

© 2005 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington
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486 E. Berglund et al.
situation is partly compensated for by the extra attention
that older siblings give to the later-born infants. However,
although studies show that even toddlers adapt their speech
when communicating with infants (Dunn & Kendrick, 1982),
preschoolers’ speech to younger siblings also differs in many
aspects from the mother’s infant-directed speech. In parti-
cular, preschool children’s infant-directed speech contains
more directives and fewer questions than the infant-directed
speech of mothers (Mannle, Barton & Tomasello, 1991).
Differences have also been found in maternal speech to first-
borns and similarly aged later-borns. Jones and Adamson
(1987), for instance, found that mothers made fewer explicit
attempts to elicit language from later-born children around
20 months of age than what mothers to first-born children
of similar age did.
Qualitative differences have also been found in the speech
of first- and later-borns. Later-born infants use social regula-
tive speech more (Jones & Adamson, 1987), more frozen
phrases (Pine, 1995), more pronouns (Oshima-Takane,
Goodz & Derevensky, 1996; Pine, 1995) and display more
advanced conversational skills (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1998) than
did first-borns. The evidence of quantitative differences
between first- and later-born infants is equivocal or ambigu-
ous. Pine (1995) found that first-borns reached the 50-word
milestone earlier than second-borns, but found no difference
at the point of 100 words. Oshima-Takane et al. (1996)
reported no differences in general language development
in their 20–22-month-old children. Hoff-Ginsberg (1998),
however, reported that first-born children 18–29 months old
were more advanced lexically and grammatically than later-
born children. Fenson et al. (1994) noted small negative but
significant correlations from the CDI measures between birth
order on the one hand and gestures, vocabulary production,
MLU and word combinations on the other.
Socioeconomic status
Several studies have shown a positive association between
the SES of the parent and the verbal abilities of the child,
especially regarding lexical development (e.g., Arriaga, Fenson,
Cronan & Pethick, 1998; Bornstein, Haynes & Painter, 1998;
Fenson et al., 1994; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991, 1998). This associa-
tion is commonly understood as being mediated by the
mother’s language. Mothers high in SES have been found to
produce more speech, use a richer vocabulary and pose a
larger number of questions to their children as compared
with mothers of lower SES. In the case of parent report
measures it has also been suggested that parents from higher
social class backgrounds give more accurate reports of
their children’s communicative skills. However, the evidence
for this hypothesis is inconclusive (see Arriaga et al., 1998
for a discussion).
In Hoff-Ginsberg’s (1998) study the effect of birth order
had a greater impact than SES on children’s language at
around the age of 2 years. For children at school, however,
© 2005 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Scand J Psychol 46 (2005)
the pattern is usually reversed. Low SES is associated with poor
performance in school and later academic achievements,
whereas no such associations are found between birth order
and school performance. Hoff-Ginsberg (1998) suggests
therefore that the relative influence from birth order and
SES on children’s language changes during childhood.
Particularly, birth order effects will be attenuated as the
composition of the family might change and children will be
more involved with peers at childcare centers and at school.
In contrast, the effects of SES are likely to continue or even
accelerate as the environmental factors associated with SES
(language styles, cultural experiences and resources) tend to
be more resistant to change. In a study of Swedish children
Westerlund (1994) demonstrated that the effects of SES on
children’s language development increase during the child-
hood years. The impact of social class differences also varies
among societies. It is often suggested that Sweden has a
narrower range of class differences as compared with, for
example, the US or the UK. Broberg, Wessles, Lamb and
Hwang (1997), for instance, were unable to show differences
related to SES in cognitive skills, including verbal ability, for
Swedish children 8 years of age.
In summary, there is some evidence that the SES of the
parents influences toddlers’ language and that this effect
will remain or even accelerate during childhood. However,
cultures differ with regard to socioeconomic structure, which
probably accounts for why such effects are of varying import-
ance in different societies.
Childcare
Research on the effects of early childcare outside the home
is extensive. Many studies have focused particularly on the
effects of various forms of childcare on cognitive development
for disadvantaged children. Positive effects have generally
been confirmed (Burchinal, Lee & Ramey, 1989; Burchinal,
Roberts, Nabors & Bryant, 1996; Burchinal, Roberts, Riggin,
Zeisel, Neebe & Bryant, 2000; Caughy, DiPietro & Strobino,
1994).
The National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development Early Childcare Research Network reports a
10-site longitudinal study in naturalistic settings of childcare
and cognitive and language development of children below
the age of 3 years in the United States (NICHHD, 2000).
The study concluded that there was no indication that early
and extensive care is either deleterious or advantageous for
a child’s cognitive and language development. This conclusion
was true for both advantaged and disadvantaged children.
Positive long-term effects on children’s cognitive abilities,
including language, in early childcare in day-care centers have
been reported in two naturalistic Swedish studies (Andersson,
1989; 1992; Broberg, Wessles, Lamb & Hwang, 1997).
Negative effects of early childcare may occur, especially
when care is of poor quality. Two factors known to influence
the quality of childcare are the number of children per adult
Scand J Psychol 46 (2005)
and staff education (Burchinal, Cryer, Clifford & Howes,
2002; NICHHD, 1999). These two factors are highly cor-
related to the two main types of childcare in Sweden: family
childcare, in which children stay in the home of a “day
mother,” and regular day-care centers, which are far more
common (see Andersson, 1989, for more details regarding
childcare in Sweden). The women in charge of family child-
care are usually responsible for more children and have
less formal training than the personnel at day-care centers.
Andersson (1989) reported tendencies that care at day-
care centers, in contrast to family childcare, is especially
beneficial for cognitive development. This tendency was
confirmed in Broberg et al. (1997), who noted that children
in day-care centers were typically performing at the top,
followed by children in home care and children in family
childcare. However, the authors were cautious in interpreting
these results because the sample size, especially for children
in family childcare, was small.
METHOD
Participants/sample
The sample consists of children participating in a screening study
involving 37 randomly selected child healthcare centers in Uppsala
County Council. In all, 1,019 children participated (524 boys and
495 girls), which corresponds to 88% of the feasible population.
Disabled children with expected language disturbances and chil-
dren from non-Swedish-speaking families were excluded (for an
account of non-participation, see Eriksson, Westerlund & Ber-
glund, 2002; Westerlund, Eriksson & Berglund, in press).
The children’s ages ranged from 499 days to 664 days (M =
18.38 months, SD = 0.67). Of these children, 38% were first-borns
and 56% had some kind of childcare outside the home. SES was
determined by means of the Swedish SEI system (Statistics Sweden,
1983). The children were grouped into five SES categories according
to their mother’s occupation as stated in the national birth-register
(see Table 1 for descriptive data). Because many mothers did not
contribute information on their occupation in this register or could
not be classified according to occupation (e.g., students and stay-at-
home mothers), analyses involving SES are based on 614 children
(296 girls and 318 boys).
Material
The instrument used to assess communicative skills was the SCS18
(Swedish Communicative Screening at 18 months), a parental
report in checklist format. This instrument assesses the use of 13
common gestures together with vocabulary comprehension and
Table 1. Descriptive characteristics in the 18-month-old children
No. (%)
Gender Boys 524 (51.4) Girls 495 (48.6)
Birth order First-born 384 (37.7) Later-born 635 (62.3)
SES Blue collar: Unskilled 92 (15.0) Skilled 187 (30.5)
White collar: Lower 112 (18.2) Intermediate 179 (29.2)
Childcare Home care 443 (45.1) Family childcare 135 (13.7)
© 2005 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Communicative skills 487
production of 90 words. The test-retest reliability is 0.89 for both
gestures and vocabulary comprehension, and 0.97 for vocabulary
production. The part-whole correlations of the SCS18 in relation to
the larger inventories (Swedish early communicative development
inventories, SECDI) are 0.91 for both vocabulary production and
vocabulary comprehension and 0.74 for the full gestures inventory
(Eriksson, Westerlund & Berglund, 2002). The concurrent validity
of the vocabulary section of SECDI has been estimated to be in the
rage of 70 – 82% compared with notes from diaries of Swedish children
16 months old and 71–95% of recorded speech samples of children
aged 16–30 months (Berglund & Eriksson, 2000).
Procedure
The parent who accompanied the child to the CHC, usually the
mother, was informed about the nature of the study and was
asked to participate. Agreeing parents completed SCS18 at the
CHC together with background questions about birth order, child-
care situation and some general health questions. Information
about the mother’s occupation was collected retrospectively from
the national birth register. (The register did not contain information
on the occupation of the father).
Analyses
First, the Chi-square test was used to examine the relation between
the different demographic variables. Descriptive statistics on the
dependent measures are given after correction for outliers. Observa-
tions diverging more than 2.5 SD from the mean were considered as
outliers and were given the score of 2.5 SD (Tabachnick & Fidell,
1996). In total, 3 outliers were given a new score in gestures, 30 in
vocabulary comprehension and 10 in vocabulary production.
Next, one-way ANOVAs were performed to determine relations
and effect sizes for each demographic variable on each communica-
tive skill. Stepwise regression analyses were computed to examine
interactions among the demographic variables on gestures, vocabu-
lary comprehension and vocabulary production.
RESULTS
Demographic variables
The Chi-square test was used to study the simple relations
between the demographic variables. No significant associa-
tions were found (Table 2).
Descriptive statistics of communicative skills
The communicative scores were used as outcome measures.
The descriptive data (M, SD, range) as well as skewness and
Missing
407
Senior 44 (7.2)
Day-care center 405 (41.2) 38
488 E. Berglund et al. Scand J Psychol 46 (2005)

Table 2. Relations among the demographic variables gender, birth Table 4. Simple relations among gender, birth order, SES and
order and SES (Chi-square tests) childcare and the communicative variables gestures, vocabulary
comprehension and vocabulary production (F and Eta2 values)
Birth order SES Childcare
F P DF Eta2
Gender 2.758 3.679 1.962
Df 1 4 2 Gestures
Birth order – 3.505 0.964 Gender 22.800 0.001 1016 0.022
Df 4 2 Birth order 0.856 n.s. 1016 (0.001)
SES – – 5.165 SES 0.872 n.s. (4,607) (0.006)
Df 8 Childcare 12.560 0.021 (2,977) 0.008
Vocabulary comprehension
Gender 22.719 0.001 1018 0.022
Birth order 4.985 0.026 1018 0.005
kurtosis for the three communicative measures are shown SES 0.313 n.s. (4,609) (0.002)
Childcare 1.898 n.s. (2, 980) (0.004)
in Table 3. The distributions for the communicative skills are
Vocabulary production
close to normal. Gestures and vocabulary comprehension Gender 47.148 0.001 1018 0.044
had a mild negative skew, whereas vocabulary production Birth order 17.705 0.001 1018 0.017
had a mild positive skew. SES 0.800 n.s. (4,609) (0.005)
Childcare 2.774 n.s. (2,980) (0.006)

Simple relations among demographic variables and

communicative skills
Table 4 displays the F and Eta2 values for each demographic
variable from separate analyses of variance and the three
communicative skills. Most demographic variables had
their largest effect on the children’s vocabulary production.
Gender was the variable with the largest effect and was
significantly related to all three communicative measures,
explaining 4.4% of the variance (as measured by Eta2) on
vocabulary production and 2.2% on both vocabulary com-
prehension and gestures. Girls obtained higher scores than
boys. Birth order was significantly related to vocabulary
comprehension (0.5%) and vocabulary production (1.7%).
First-born scored higher than later-born children. Childcare
was significantly related to the gesture score and explained
0.8% of the variance. Post-hoc comparisons (Bonferroni)
revealed no significant differences between groups ( p > 0.05).
However, the mean score for each type of care was ordered
in the same way for all the communicative skills. The mean
was always highest for the children at the day-care centers,
followed by the children cared for in the home. The children
in family care always had the lowest mean score. SES was
not significantly related to any of the communicative skills.
Regression analyses
Interactions among gender, birth order, childcare and SES were
explored by regression analyses. Birth order was dichotomized
into first-borns and later-borns. The children in family childcare
had the lowest mean scores on all communicative measures;
the mean scores for the children in home care were always
in the middle and mean scores for children at day-care centers
were highest on gestures, vocabulary comprehension and
vocabulary production. We used this information to form a
scale for the variable childcare. Family care was assigned the
value 0, home care the value 1, and care at a day-care center
the value 2. SES also formed a scale in which unskilled
blue-collar workers were assigned the lowest value and senior
white-collar workers were assigned the highest value. SES was
first included in all regressions, but as it yielded no significant
main or interaction effects, it was eventually dropped from
the analyses to increase power.
Step-wise regression analyses were calculated with gender,
birth order, childcare, and the full set of possible interactions
in a single block on gestures, vocabulary comprehension and
vocabulary production respectively. A forward selection
procedure was used in which the independent variable (or
interaction term) with the highest positive correlation with
the dependent variable was entered first, and so on. An
independent variable was allowed to enter into the equation
if the probability of its associated F-value was 0.05 or less.
The main effects of gender and childcare on gestures from
the simple ANOVAs (Table 4) came out as an interaction
effect between gender and childcare in the regression
analysis (Table 5). The interaction revealed that both boys

Table 3. Descriptive statistics for the communicative skills gestures, vocabulary comprehension and vocabulary production

M SD Range Skewness Kurtosis

Gestures 10.22 1.80 6 –13 − 0.24 − 0.74

Vocabulary comprehension 68.62 15.57 28 – 90 − 0.82 − 0.08
Vocabulary production 30.29 21.26 0 – 84 0.76 − 0.31

© 2005 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Scand J Psychol 46 (2005) Communicative skills 489

Table 5. Demographic variables (gender, birth order and SES) in relation to communicative skills (gestures, vocabulary comprehension and
vocabulary production) (adjusted R2 values)

R2 total β β t-value Model F

Gestures 0.027 28.468***

Gender 0.056 1.206
Birth order 0.028 0.895
Childcare − 0.043 − 1.022
Gender × Birth order 0.053 1.393
Gender × Childcare 0.168 5.336***
Birth order × Childcare 0.000 − 0.008
Gender × Birth order × Childcare 0.040 0.722
Vocabulary comprehension 0.025 13.568***
Gender 0.148 4.695***
Birth order − 0.064 − 2.028*
Childcare 0.058 1.827
Gender × Birth order 0.029 0.201
Gender × Childcare 0.079 1.694
Birth order × Childcare 0.079 1.826
Gender × Birth order × Childcare 0.096 1.836
Vocabulary production 0.064 23.517***
Gender 0.114 2.596**
Birth order − 0.206 − 4.952***
Childcare − 0.019 − 0.298
Gender × Birth order − 0.210 − 1.422
Gender × Childcare − 0.012 − 0.103
Birth order × Childcare 0.032 0.316
Gender × Birth order × Childcare 0.143 2.794**

* = 0.05; ** = 0.01; *** = 0.001.

Table 6. Mean gesture scores as a function of gender and childcare Table 7. Mean vocabulary production scores as a function of gender,
birth order and childcare
Childcare
Childcare
Family Day-care
childcare Home care center Family Day-care
childcare Home care center
Boys 9.8 9.9 10.1
Girls 10.2 10.4 10.7 Boys First-born 26.1 29.1 30.3
Later-born 22.1 24.5 24.5
Girls First-born 41.1 38.2 37.8
Later-born 26.7 28.5 37.5
and girls displayed a greater gesture repertoire at day-care
centers and a more restricted repertoire of gestures in family
childcare. This effect was more pronounced for girls than for
boys (Table 6). Table 5 shows further that the main effects DISCUSSION
of gender and birth order on vocabulary comprehension This paper has focused on the effects of demographic fac-
remained and no significant interaction was revealed. Girls tors on early communicative skills in a population study of
scored higher than boys and first-born scored higher than 18-month-old Swedish-speaking children. The results demon-
later-born children. Main effects of gender and birth order strate significant effects of gender and birth order on voca-
were also observed on vocabulary production, but there was bulary comprehension and production. Girls scored higher
also a three-way interaction involving gender, birth order than boys and first-borns scored higher than later-borns.
and childcare (Table 5). Again, girls scored higher than boys The effect of gender was larger than the effect of birth
and first-borns scored higher than later-borns. The inter- order, with the former explaining between 2.2% and 4.4%
action indicated that both first-born and later-born boys of the variance in vocabulary production (corresponding
scored highest if cared for at home or at day-care centers, that to a difference of about one word). The present gender
first-born girls scored highest in family childcare and that effect corroborates the findings of Fenson et al. (1994) and
later-born girls scored highest at day-care centers (Table 7). Galsworthy et al. (2000) for similarly aged children. The
These regressions explained between 2.5 and 6.4% of the size of the effect in our study was in the same magnitude
variance in communicative skills. but slightly larger for vocabulary production than what was

© 2005 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

490 E. Berglund et al.
found in these other studies. On the other hand, the present
finding challenges our previous claim of no difference in
vocabulary production between Swedish-speaking boys and
girls 16–28 months old (Berglund & Eriksson, 2000) and the
meta-analysis of Hyde and Linn (1988). A reanalysis of the
data from Berglund and Eriksson (2000) revealed a slight
gender difference favoring girls if power is increased by ana-
lyzing longitudinal data cross-sectionally and collapsed over
cohorts with age group as covariate (F(1, 802) = 8.059, p <
0.01). The effect size in this sample amounted to 1%. Hence,
a small female advantage could be detected when the variance
from age was controlled and the sample size was increased.
Hyde and Linn’s (1988) analysis incorporates studies of
subjects from 3 years to adults and does not directly apply
to children below the age of 3. By the age of 3 years, boys
might catch up with the girls. However, Hyde and Linn also
reported a small female advantage for children aged 3–5
years (as for the weighted overall mean across all ages),
corresponding to a Cohen’s d of 0.07. Nevertheless, Hyde
and Linn’s ( p. 62) general conclusion is that a gender differ-
ence of one tenth of a standard deviation is scarcely one that
deserves continued attention in theory, research, or textbooks.
In agreement with this statement, we see no need for differ-
ent praxis for girls and boys, such as different age norms,
due to a difference that is just statistically detectable.
Given that the difference between girls and boys in voca-
bulary production (as well as in general measures of verbal
ability) is so small that it cannot be directly observed, the
prevalent awareness among people of this difference is
surprising. One hypothesis, pursued by Hyde and Linn among
others, is that studies on “normal populations” suppress a
real difference if more boys than girls are excluded for
medical reasons or placement in special education. On the
other hand, such possible effects might be counterbalanced
if the general belief of girls’ verbal superiority over boys also
influences the standards for referral, leading to larger required
deviations for boys to be referred in the first place. However,
both speculations need to be substantiated by data.
The small gender effect in verbal ability might also be related
to parents’ expectation of a gender difference in one of two
ways. The expectations might cause parents to stimulate the
language of girls more than that of boys, making the expecta-
tion self-fulfilling, or parental reports might be especially
sensitive to such expectations and over report female linguistic
performance. The latter argument is, however, unlikely as
a female advantage is generally also found in formal testing
and in natural observations. It should also be remembered
that expectations are closely dependent on the prevailing
time and culture.
The effect of birth order is consistent with other related
studies (Pine, 1995; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1998; Fenson et al., 1994).
We were also able to confirm Pine’s (1995) claim that first-
borns reached the 50-word milestone before later-born
children. Detailed analyses of the present data showed that
the effect of birth order was evident for the children with a
© 2005 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Scand J Psychol 46 (2005)
vocabulary production of less than 50 words (t(821) = 2.155,
p < 0.05). However, this was not true for the group of
children with a vocabulary production over 50 words (t(189)
= −0.236, p > 0.05). As indicated by the negative sign, the
mean vocabulary production score for later-borns in this
group was even slightly higher, than for first-borns, although
insignificantly so. It can also be noted that the children
in the study of Oshima-Takane et al. (1996), for which no
general effect of birth order on language development could
be found, had a mean vocabulary production of over 80 words
at first assessment. Hence, it seems that the effect of birth
order is limited to the onset of language production.
Effects of childcare appeared in the present study first
as a main effect in the simple analysis of variance for the
gesture data, but were later present as part of an interaction
effect with gender. The interaction between childcare and
gender indicates that both boys and girls at day-care centers
displayed more types of gestures than boys and girls in
family childcare, but that this effect was more pronounced
for girls than for boys. There was also an interaction regard-
ing vocabulary production between gender, birth order and
childcare, indicating that both first- and later-born boys in
family childcare had a lower vocabulary production than
boys in home and day care. In contrast, first-born girls in
family childcare had the largest vocabulary production of all
groups of children. All but the last result indicates that
family care is not as advantageous as care at home or at a
day-care center for children’s communicative development.
The fact that only a small part (14%) of the study popula-
tion was cared for in family care probably contributes to the
inconsistent result regarding this form of care. The organi-
zation of family care in which a single person, typically with-
out special education, is in charge of many children is thus
likely to display a high variation in care quality. The system
is much more vulnerable than care at day-care centers in
which several specially trained persons are in charge. We
note also that we did not have control over the length of
time children had spent outside of home care. Because the
social security system in Sweden generally allows a parent to
be home with his or her child for about 1 year, children’s
experience outside of home care was seldom longer than 6
months. It might be argued that this is a rather short period
that is probably without any significance; nevertheless, 6
months is one-third of the life of these 18-month-old children.
Moreover, this period is most important when it comes to
language learning. In contrast, the two studies on the effect
of Swedish childcare on children’s cognitive development have
focused on long-term effects at 8 years (Broberg et al., 1997)
or 13 years (Andersson, 1992). Yet, the results from these studies
regarding different forms of early childcare are very similar
to those of the present study. All three studies indicate that
children who attend family care score among the lowest in
cognitive development and children who attend day-care centers
from early on score at the highest levels. However, we would also
like to stress that daycare policies are subject to different policies
Scand J Psychol 46 (2005)
in different countries, policies that are likely to change over
time. Thus, we would recommend further studies of the day-
care situation and what affects its quality and its effects on
children, not the least regarding family care.
We were unable to demonstrate any effects of SES in this
period and hence could not confirm the findings of several
US studies (Arriaga et al., 1998; Bornstein et al., 1998;
Fenson et al., 1994; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991; 1998) and one
Swedish study (Andersson, 1992). One reason for this lack
of confirmation might have been that the power in our
analyses was weaker than for the other demographic factors
because of incompleteness in the birth register. However, no
tendencies of SES were found and no changes were noted
in the main effects of gender and birth order when analyses
were run with the smaller sample that included complete
SES information. We therefore conclude that SES is not
associated with quantitative differences in early communica-
tive skills in Swedish-speaking children 18 months of age.
Moreover, it is of no surprise that there are psychological
differences associated with the political organization of
different societies. That SES was an important predictor in
Andersson’s (1992) follow-up of cognitive performance in
13-year-old Swedish children underscores Hoff-Ginsberg
(1998) and Westerlund’s (1994) suggestion that the import-
ance of SES is likely to increase with increasing age during
the childhood and adolescent periods.
The research reported in this paper has received grants from the
University of Gävle. We thank all the parents for participating
in the study, and the nurses at the Child Health Clinics for their
co-operation.
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Received 21 April 2004, accepted 28 January 2005