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Hoff Ses Via Mom Speech - CD2003-1
Hoff Ses Via Mom Speech - CD2003-1
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Child Development, September/October 2003, Volume 74, Number 5, Pages 1368–1378
The hypothesis was tested that children whose families differ in socioeconomic status (SES) differ in their rates
of productive vocabulary development because they have different language-learning experiences. Naturalistic
interaction between 33 high-SES and 30 mid-SES mothers and their 2-year-old children was recorded at 2 time
points 10 weeks apart. Transcripts of these interactions provided the basis for estimating the growth in
children’s productive vocabularies between the first and second visits and properties of maternal speech at the
first visit. The high-SES children grew more than the mid-SES children in the size of their productive
vocabularies. Properties of maternal speech that differed as a function of SES fully accounted for this difference.
Implications of these findings for mechanisms of environmental influence on child development are discussed.
Family socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful including (a) biologically based differences in chil-
predictor of many aspects of child development. An dren’s abilities, caused by genes or health; (b) global
aim of current research is to identify the pathways effects of differences in family functioning and
by which SES exerts its well-established influence home environments (Linver et al., 2002); and (c)
(DeGarmo, Forgatch, & Martinez, 1999; Keating & specific effects of differences in language-learning
Hertzman, 1999; Linver, Brooks-Gunn, & Kohen, experiences (Hoff & Naigles, 2002; Hoff-Ginsberg,
2002; National Research Council and Institute of 1998).
Medicine, 2000). Because SES and child development Each of the candidate explanations of the SES–
are multifaceted variables and because many factors child language relation derives from a broader scope
that influence child development covary with SES, theory of how and to what extent the environment
the causal relations underlying SES effects on child influences development in general and language
development may be difficult to uncover (Hoff, acquisition in particular. One view is that develop-
Laursen, & Tardif, 2002). The present study focused ment, in particular language development, unfolds
on one reliably observed relation between SES and following a genetic blueprint (e.g., Pinker, 2002). The
child development and sought to identify the alternative view, of course, is that the environment
underlying mechanism. plays a substantial role. Pointing to the environment,
The relation in focus is that between SES and early however, does not explain how the environment
vocabulary development. It is well established that exerts its influence. It could be that the effect of the
children from lower SES build their vocabularies at environment is global. That is, supportive environ-
slower rates than children from higher SES (Arriaga, ments benefit all aspects of development and
Fenson, Cronan, & Pethick, 1998; Dollaghan et al., unsupportive environments impede them. The fact
1999; Feldman et al., 2000; Hart & Risley, 1995; Hoff, that the effects of SES are pervasive and cross
in press; Morrisset, Barnard, Greenberg, Booth, & developmental domains is consistent with this
Spieker, 1990; Rescorla, 1989; Rescorla & Alley, 2001). global effect model. On the other hand, a variety of
This relation could be the result of several factors evidence argues for the principle of environmental
specificity, according to which different aspects of
the environment influence different aspects of
development (Wachs, 1991). For example, the
Erika Hoff, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic Uni- aspects of maternal behavior that predict language
versity. development are different from the aspects of
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their comments maternal behavior that predict play development
and to Ryan Adams, Brett Laursen, and Todd Shackelford for
discussion of the ideas in this manuscript. Data collection was
(Lyytinen, Eklund, & Lyytinen, 2003; Tamis-LeMonda
supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human & Bornstein, 1994). Within language, the aspects
Development Grant HD20936. of experience that influence the development of
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Erika Hoff, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University,
2912 College Avenue, Davie, FL 33314. Electronic mail may be sent r 2003 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
to ehoff@fau.edu. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2003/7405-0009
Socioeconomic Status and Vocabulary Development 1369
Table 2
Results
Means (and Standard Deviations) for Properties of Maternal Speech at
Descriptive statistics for the measure of child Time 1
vocabulary at Times 1 and 2 are presented in Table 1. Maternal speech property Mid SES High SES
There was no SES-related difference in the number
of word types produced at Time 1 (p4.4), and the Number of utterances 522.37 697.36
difference between the number of word types (195.85) (233.76)
produced at Time 1 and Time 2 was significant for Number of word tokens 1570.40 2165.12
(537.55) (832.96)
both groups, for the high-SES children, t(32) 5 6.18,
Mean length of utterance 3.48 3.63
po.001, and for the mid-SES children, t(29) 5 5.69,
(0.35) (0.49)
po.001. Thus, the two groups of children started at
Number of word types 269.00 324.18
equivalent levels at Time 1 and grew in vocabulary (58.21) (91.85)
use from Time 1 to Time 2, setting the stage for the Number of utterances in episodes of 101.1 100.94
focal questions of whether the two groups of joint attention
children grew at different rates and whether input (60.87) (58.05)
explained why. Descriptive statistics for the meas- Number of topic-continuing replies 111.67 147.12
ures of the hypothesized mediators in maternal (55.25) (55.51)
speech are presented in Table 2. Note. SES 5 socioeconomic status.
The analyses of the relations among these vari-
ables and SES are presented in four sections as they hypothesis that input mediates the SES–child lan-
address the conditions necessary to demonstrate guage relation. In principle, effects of child age on
mediation. In all analyses involving SES, the effect of maternal speech and child language development
birth order was statistically removed because there could similarly result in spurious correlations, but in
were more laterborns in the high-SES group than the the present sample there were no significant correla-
mid-SES group and because previous analyses tions between child age and any measure of
found birth order to be related to maternal speech maternal speech.
and to child vocabulary size in this sample (Hoff-
Ginsberg, 1998). In all analyses predicting child
vocabulary, the outcome measure was the children’s
Relation of SES to Child Vocabulary
vocabulary sizes at Time 2, and the variance
attributable to vocabulary size at Time 1 was Multiple regression with hierarchical analysis of
removed. Time 1 variance was removed to avoid variables (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003) was
spurious correlations between maternal speech and used to estimate the variance in child vocabulary at
child language at Time 2 that might result from both Time 2 that was attributable to SES, after the
measures being related to child language at Time 1 variance attributable to birth order and child
(Newport, Gleitman, & Gleitman, 1977). Because this vocabulary at Time 1 were removed. The results,
is a conservative procedure for estimating input presented in Table 3, show that birth order and Time
effects (Huttenlocher et al., 1991), it is also a 1 status accounted for 23% of the variance in child
conservative procedure for testing the current vocabulary at Time 2 and that SES accounted for an
1372 Hoff
Table 3 Table 4
Hierarchical Analysis Predicting the Variance in Child Vocabulary at Partial Correlations of SES to Hypothesized Mediators in Properties of
Time 2 Uniquely Attributable to SES, Removing Effects of Birth Order Maternal Speech
and Time 1 Vocabulary (N 5 63)
Maternal speech properties SES
Variable B SE B b
Number of utterances .37nn
Step 1 Number of word tokens .39nnn
Birth order 2.70 1.81 .17 Mean length of utterance .23n
Time 1 vocabulary 0.68 0.18 .42nnn Number of word types .36nn
R2 for Step 1 5 .23 Number of utterances in episodes .04
Step 2 of joint attention
Birth order 3.43 1.81 .22n Number of topic-continuing replies .31nn
Time 1 vocabulary 0.64 0.18 .40nnn
Note. SES 5 socioeconomic status. Birth order is held constant.
SES 5.67 2.94 .22n n
po.05, one-tailed. nnpo.01, one-tailed. nnnpo.001, one-tailed.
DR2 for Step 2 5 .05
Note. SES 5 socioeconomic status. Table 5
n
po.05, one-tailed. nnnpo.001, one-tailed. Partial Correlations of Hypothesized Mediators to Child Vocabulary
Word types in
additional, significant 5% of the variance. Thus, the Maternal speech properties child speech
first condition for demonstrating mediation was
Number of utterances .05
met: the predictor (SES) was significantly associated Number of word tokens .21n
with the outcome (child vocabulary). Mean length of utterance .55nnn
Number of word types .22nn
Number of utterances in episodes .02
Relation of SES to Maternal Speech Properties
of joint attention
Partial correlations, holding birth order constant, Number of topic-continuing replies .18
assessed the relation of SES to the hypothesized Note. Outcome is measured at Time 2; partial correlation holds
mediating properties of maternal speech. The re- Time 1 value of the outcome measure constant.
sults, presented in Table 4, revealed that SES was n
po.05, one-tailed. nnpo.01, one-tailed. nnnpo.001, one-tailed.
related to five of the six tested properties of maternal
speech. The high-SES mothers produced more results are presented in Table 5. These three proper-
utterances, more word tokens, and more word types; ties of maternal speech were intercorrelated. The
had higher MLUs; and produced more topic- number of tokens and number of types were highly
continuing replies to their children than did the related, r(61) 5 .89, po.001, and both were signifi-
mid-SES mothers. There was no SES-related differ- cantly related to MLU, r(61) 5 .35, po.001 and
ence in the number of utterances that were produced r(61) 5 .48, po.001, respectively. The number of
during episodes of joint attention. These correlations word tokens was therefore dropped from the set of
satisfied the second condition for demonstrating mediators, as it was essentially redundant with the
mediation: The predictor (SES) was significantly number of types. (The question of the separate roles
associated with hypothesized mediators (measures in vocabulary development of these two intercorre-
of maternal speech) of the predictor - outcome lated properties of maternal speech is discussed in
relation. Hoff and Naigles, 2002, and Huttenlocher et al.,
1991. It is not addressable within this sample
because of the high multicollinearity of the two
Relation of SES-Related Maternal Speech Properties to
measures.) A second analysis used multiple regres-
Child Vocabulary
sion to assess the predictive power of number of
The first analysis of the relations between the word types and MLU together. That regression is
hypothesized mediating properties of maternal presented in Table 6 and shows that only MLU
speech and the child vocabulary outcome at Time 2 emerged as a significant predictor, uniquely account-
used partial correlations to assess the predictive ing for 22% of the variance in child vocabulary.
power of each speech property alone. Three proper- This relation satisfies the third condition for
ties of mothers’ child-directed speech were positive demonstrating mediation: There is a mediator
predictors of child vocabulary at Time 2: number of (measures of maternal speech) that is related to the
word tokens, number of word types, and MLU. The outcome (child vocabulary).
Socioeconomic Status and Vocabulary Development 1373
Table 6 Table 7
Hierarchical Analysis Predicting the Variance in Child Vocabulary at Hierarchical Analysis Assessing the Variance in Child Vocabulary at
Time 2 Uniquely Attributable to Maternal Speech, Removing Effects of Time 2 Uniquely Attributable to SES, Removing Effects of Birth Order,
Birth Order and Time 1 Vocabulary (N 5 63) Time 1 Vocabulary, and Maternal Speech (N 5 63)
Variable B SE B b Variable B SE B b
Step 1 Step 1
Birth order 2.70 1.81 .17 Birth order 2.70 1.81 .17
Time 1 vocabulary 0.68 0.18 .42nnn Time 1 vocabulary 0.68 0.18 .42nnn
R2 for Step 1 5 .23 R2 for Step 1 5 .23
Step 2 Step 2
Birth order 1.02 1.60 .06 Birth order 1.04 1.60 .07
Time 1 vocabulary 0.48 017 .30nn Time 1 Vocabulary 0.48 0.16 .30nn
Word types in maternal speech 0.00 0.02 .02 MLU of maternal speech 15.18 3.13 .50nnn
MLU of maternal speech 15.42 3.51 .51nnn DR2 for Step 2 5 .22
DR2 for Step 2 5 .22 Step 3
Birth order 1.54 1.63 .10
Note. SES 5 socioeconomic status; MLU 5 mean length of utter-
ances. Time 1 vocabulary 0.47 0.16 .29nn
nn
po.01, one-tailed. nnnpo.001, one-tailed. MLU of maternal speech 14.35 3.19 .47nnn
SES 3.18 2.61 .12
DR2 for Step 3 5 .01
Relation of SES to Child Vocabulary Holding Maternal Note. SES 5 socioeconomic status; MLU 5 mean length of utter-
Speech Properties Constant ances.
nn
po.01, one-tailed. nnnpo.001, one-tailed.
The last statistical analysis tested the mediation
hypothesis using multiple regression with hierarch-
mid-SES families was fully explained in terms of
ical analysis of variables to estimate the variance in
differences in their mothers’ speech. Identification of
child vocabulary uniquely associated with SES,
the mediating variable is not a description of the
holding the hypothesized mediators constant. The
mechanisms that underlie the effect of SES, but it
results of that analysis are presented in Table 7. After
provides a starting point for pursuing such a
the 23% of variance attributable to birth order and
description.
child vocabulary and Time 1 was removed, the
hypothesized mediating properties of maternal
speech accounted for an additional 22% of the
variance in child outcome, leaving only a nonsigni- How Maternal Speech Mediates the SES–Child Language
ficant 1% of the variance in child vocabulary growth Relation
attributable to SES. Thus, the fourth and critical
The mechanism by which SES affects child
condition for demonstrating mediation was met: The
language development via maternal speech must
strength of the association between the predictor and
have two components: (a) the process by which SES
outcome was reduced by removing the variance
affects maternal speech and (b) the process by which
attributable to the mediators. In fact, full mediation
maternal speech affects language growth. With
was demonstrated because the association between
respect to the first process, data from the present
SES and child vocabulary was no longer significant
sample suggest that SES-related differences in child-
once the variance attributable to maternal speech
directed speech arise from more general SES-related
was removed.
differences in language use. The presently observed
differences in the quantity, lexical richness, and
sentence complexity of mothers’ speech to their
Discussion
children were also found in the speech these
The goal of the present study was to identify the mothers addressed to a researcher in an open-ended
mechanism by which SES influences children’s interview about childrearing goals (Hoff-Ginsberg,
productive vocabulary development. The findings 1991). The present sample of mothers showed no
indicated that maternal speech was the mediating differences in their childrearing beliefs or goals, but
variable: The observed difference in growth in in the population more broadly these, too, may be
productive vocabulary between a group of children sources of SES-related differences in child-directed
from high-SES families and a group of children from speech. Parents from different social strata may hold
1374 Hoff
different beliefs about the value and appropriateness development. The present study looked only at
of talking to children or about the desirability of maternal speech in everyday interactions and only at
having a talkative child, and they may behave some measures of speech in that context. The time
differently as a result (Heath, 1983; Snow, de Blauw, children spend in other contexts, such as book
& Van Roosmalen, 1979). SES may also be associated reading, and other properties of maternal vocabu-
with differences in the time available for leisurely lary use, such as use of rare vocabulary, may also be
parent–child interaction and in the magnitude of relevant to vocabulary development (Hoff, 2003;
other stresses on parents, and these shape parents’ Weizman & Snow, 2001). The present study exam-
interactions with their children (Hoff et al., 2002; ined only a brief period of lexical development;
Snow, Dubber, & de Blauw, 1982). other factors may be relevant during other periods
The process by which maternal speech affects (see Hoff & Naigles, 2002, for a discussion). The
language growth suggested by the present findings present study did not sample the full range of SES in
is by providing data to the child’s word-learning population. The lower group was not a low-SES
mechanisms. Children who heard longer utterances group. The full range of SES no doubt includes a
built productive vocabularies at faster rates than larger range of language-learning environments and
children who heard shorter utterances. There may be associated differences in language development than
several reasons for this. First, the variance in captured in the present study.
utterance length includes variance in the number Additionally, the present study underestimated
of word types. That is, the mothers who spoke in the role of input because removing the variance
longer utterances also used a richer vocabulary, and attributable to the child at Time 1 has other effects
the more different words children hear, the more besides the sought-for effect of eliminating spurious
different words they may learn. The finding that correlations due to effects of the child on maternal
word types contributed no predictive power beyond speech. It also removes variance in maternal speech
the predictive power of MLU does not contradict that affected the child’s language up to Time 1, and it
this conclusion. Because longer utterances typically removes variance in maternal speech that is relevant
both include more content words and are of greater to language development but that is elicited by
grammatical complexity than shorter utterances properties of the child’s language use (e.g., see Hoff-
(Rollins, Snow, & Willett, 1996), the relation between Ginsberg, 1994). This concern is consistent with
word types and MLU is, to a degree, the relation arguments from the study of other domains of
between a part of a measure and the whole. The development that whenever the experiences relevant
variance in the part may have real effects, but it has to development involve interactions with others,
no unique effect beyond the variance in the whole children’s own behavior is likely to influence their
that includes it. Second, longer utterances may experiences, and thus procedures that exclude such
provide more information about word meaning experiences will overlook real environmental effects
because discussion of word meaning, which many (Rutter, Pickles, Murray, & Eaves, 2001).1
mothers do (Gelman, Coley, Rosengren, Hartman, &
Pappas, 1998), requires longer utterances than does 1
To pursue this concern in the present data, the predictive
merely providing labels. Third, longer utterances relations between properties of maternal speech that differed as a
provide richer and potentially more varied syntactic function of SES and child vocabulary at Time 2 were reanalyzed
frames surrounding words, and syntax has been without removing the variance attributable to the child at Time 1.
demonstrated to be a source of information regard- One additional measure of maternal input predicted child
vocabulary at Time 2: the number of topic-continuing replies to
ing word meaning (Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg, 1998). the child (r 5.27, po.05). When this additional variable was
Thus, the present data paint a picture in which the included as a measure of maternal speech and when variance
habitual style of language use among college- attributable to child level at Time 1 was not removed, the variance
educated mothers influences the way they talk to in child vocabulary at Time 2 accounted for by input increased
their children, which in turn affects the rate at from the 22% shown in Table 6 to 34%. The test of whether
maternal speech mediates the SES effect was also performed again
which their children build their productive vocab- without removing the variance attributable to the child at Time 1
ularies. and including topic-continuing replies among maternal speech
The present findings do not provide an exhaus- measures. The result was that the variance attributable to SES after
tive account of the properties of children’s language- removing effects of maternal speech was a nonsignificant 1%.
learning environments that affect vocabulary devel- Thus, not partialling out the effects of the child at Time 1 from the
present analyses increased the variance in child productive
opment, nor does the variance accounted for by the vocabulary attributable to maternal speech and left unaffected
measures in the present study indicate the full the finding that maternal speech mediates the SES–child produc-
influence of environmental factors on language tive vocabulary relation.
Socioeconomic Status and Vocabulary Development 1375
Another caveat concerning the present findings is general or language-specific endowment. The pre-
that they leave ambiguous the nature of the effect of sent findings suggest, to the contrary, that the
maternal speech on language development because frequently observed SES-related difference in IQ
the outcome measure employed was ambiguous. (Scarr, 1981) may be a result, rather than a cause, of
The relative sizes of children’s productive vocabul- SES-related differences in vocabulary, which in turn
aries was assessed by counting the number of have their roots in differences in experience. Vocab-
different words the children produced in samples ulary is a large component of most IQ tests, but
of spontaneous speech. Spontaneous speech meas- vocabulary differences indicate ability differences
ures have the advantage that they avoid bias, which only on the assumption of equal opportunity to
is possible in a test of vocabulary knowledge that acquire a vocabulary. The present findings demon-
uses a predetermined set of words. However, the strate that the aspects of experience that support
words children use in talking reflect both the words vocabulary acquisition are not equally available to
children have available to use and the process by children across socioeconomic strata. A further
which they choose which words to use; it is not a argument against a genetic explanation of the
pure measure of vocabulary knowledge. Ease of presently observed SES effect is that birth order also
lexical access and style of language use also was related to maternal MLU and to vocabulary
influence the vocabulary used in spontaneous growth (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1998).
speech, and both of these factors may be influenced The present findings not only locate the source of
by language experience. The frequency with which SES-related differences in children’s language devel-
children hear words may influence the ease with opment in their environments, they also argue for
which they retrieve them as they speak, and children the principle of environmental specificity rather a
learn not only language but also a style of language model of global environmental influence. Not every
use from their linguistic experiences. In the same measure that differed as a function of SES predicted
vein, findings from studies of 4- and 5-year-olds child vocabulary; thus, it is not that any experiential
suggest there are more likely to be SES-related correlate of SES predicts any developmental corre-
differences in children’s productive vocabularies late of SES. Rather, the picture of environmental
than in their comprehension vocabularies (Hoff, in influence and of SES effects that the present findings
press; Snow, 1999). suggest is one in which vocabulary development
The point of this caution is not to argue away depends on particular properties of language ex-
the SES-related difference we initially sought to perience. Variability in these properties creates
explain; rather, it is to admit that we do not fully variability in the rate of children’s vocabulary
understand the degree to which the difference development regardless of SES. To the extent that
between mid-SES and high-SES children in the size the relevant features of experience vary as a function
of the vocabularies they use reflects differences in of SES, so too will vocabulary development vary as a
language knowledge or differences in lexical access function of SES. This result dovetails with findings
and style of language use. The present findings from 5- to 6-year-olds that syntactic properties of the
should be taken as evidence that one reason children speech they hear accounts for SES-related differ-
from different social strata use different-sized ences in their syntactic knowledge (Huttenlocher,
vocabularies is that they have different language Vasilyeva, Cymerman, & Levine, 2002). Both these
experiences. It is a task for future research to findings are consistent with the principle of envi-
untangle the differences in children’s vocabulary ronmental specificity, according to which different
use that arise from knowledge from those that reflect aspects of development have unique environmental
style. predictors (Wachs & Chan, 1986), and they further
extend that principle to the explanation of the effects
of broad, distal variables such as SES, suggesting
that SES affects child development through multiple,
How the Environment Influences Development: Support
specific pathwaysFeach path reflecting the specific
for the Environmental Specificity Hypothesis
proximal processes (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998)
The present evidence for the role of maternal by which environmental factors exert their influence.
speech in explaining the SES-related difference in An important implication of the specificity principle
children’s productive vocabularies reduces the need is that specific remediation should be effective. Thus,
for alternative explanations. There is no need to posit enriching children’s language experience should
biological-based SES-related differences in children’s have beneficial effects on the vocabulary develop-
word-learning abilities, whether based in domain- ment of lower SES children, even when other SES-
1376 Hoff
related differences in children’s environments re- Inventory of children from low- and middle-income
main unaddressed. families. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 209–223.
The conclusion that the principle of environmental Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-
specificity is supported should be tempered, how- mediator variable distinction in social psychological
ever, by a consideration of the nature of the current research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical consid-
erations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51,
sample. The participants represented only a portion
1173–1182.
of the range of socioeconomic strataFa portion at the
Bernicot, J., & Roux, M. (1998). La structure et l’usage des
high end. None of the children in this study lived in enonces: Comparison d’enfants uniques et d’enfants
poverty. This limited range provides an advantage in second nes [The structure and function of sentences:
that it allows demonstrating that there are SES-related Comparison of only children and second born children].
differences in maternal speech with consequences for In J. Bernicot, H. Marcos, C. Day, M. Guidette, J. Rabain-
child language development, even where other Jamain, V. Laval, & G. Babelot (Eds.), De l’usage des
factors that typically covary with SES do not apply. gestes et des mots chez les enfants [On the function of
On the other hand, because this sample does not gesture and words in the infant] (pp. 157–178). Paris:
represent the full range of social strata, the variance in Armand Colin.
this sample attributable to SES and the degree to Bornstein, M. H., Hahn, C.-S., Suwalsky, J. T. D., & Haynes,
O. M. (2003). Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child
which the effect of SES is mediated by maternal
development: The Hollingshead four-factor index of
speech may not be representative of those relations in
social status and the socioeconomic index of occupa-
the population. In the present sample only 5% of the tions. In M. H. Bornstein & R. H. Bradley (Eds.),
variance in children’s vocabularies was attributable to Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development (pp.
SES, but in the population as a whole it is probably 29–82). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
greater. Furthermore, it is possible that maternal Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (1998). The ecology of
speech is a smaller part of the explanation of SES developmental processes. In W. Damon(Series Ed.) & R.
effects where there are large differences in health, M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 1:
nutrition, and overall stimulation that may have Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 993–
pervasive effects on development. It is a topic for 1028). New York: Wiley.
future research to investigate the degree to which the Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. S.
(2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis
environmental specificity principle applies across the
for the behavioral sciences (3rd ed.), Mahwah, NJ:
full SES gradient.
Erlbaum.
In conclusion, common belief and scientific DeGarmo, D. S., Forgatch, M. S., & Martinez, C. R. Jr.
evidence are in agreement that children from more (1999). Parenting of divorced mothers as a link between
advantaged homes have more advanced language social status and boys’ academic outcomes: Unpacking
skills than children of the same age from less the effects of socioeconomic status. Child Development,
advantaged homes. The evidence presented here 70, 1231–1245.
suggests that one source of the SES-related differ- Dollaghan, C. A., Campbell, T. F., Paradise, J. L., Feldman,
ence in 2-year-old children’s vocabulary use is SES- H. M., Janosky, J. E., Pitcairn, D. N., et al. (1999).
related differences in the speech children hear. These Maternal education and measures of early speech and
findings are consistent with the view that specific language. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing
Research, 42, 1432–1443.
aspects of language development depend on specific
Feldman, H. M., Dollaghan, C. A., Campbell, T. F., Kurs-
properties of language experience and thus with the
Lasky, M., Janosky, J. E., & Paradise, J. L. (2000).
principle of environmental specificity. This identifi- Measurement properties of the MacArthur Communi-
cation of one pathway through which SES affects one cative Development Inventory at ages one and two
aspect of child development is consistent with the years. Child Development, 71, 310–322.
broader view that the pervasive effects of SES on Gelman, S. A., Coley, J. D., Rosengren, K. S., Hartman, E.,
child development comprise multiple specific rela- & Pappas, A. (1998). Beyond labeling: The role of
tions between aspects of children’s experience that maternal input in the acquisition of richly structured
vary as a function of SES and the developmental categories. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
outcomes that these experiences affect. Development, 63, (1 Serial No. 253).
Hart, B., & Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful differences in the
everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore:
Brookes.
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