Original Article doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2007.00801.

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 Women’s and Children’s Health, Section for Paediatrics, Uppsala University, Children’s Hospital, and
†Central Unit for Child Health Care, Children’s 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, Children’s
Hospital, SE-751 85
Uppsala, Sweden
E-mail:
monica.westerlund@
akademiska.se
Abstract
Background Previous research has elucidated the associations between children’s 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 children’s 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 17–19 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. Mother’s perception of ability to communicate was measured by a scale
constructed ad hoc from the International Child Development Programmes, a parent education
curriculum. Bates’ ‘difficultness’ scale was used to assess temperament.
Results Good communication, low maternal age, female gender and frequent reading were
significantly associated with expressive vocabulary. High maternal education, good communication,
higher maternal age, female gender and being a first-born child were significantly 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 findings support the importance of reading and communication quality to early
language development. Knowledge of the relationship between children’s 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.

tering of a country’s majority language is a great psychosocial

Introduction
disadvantage not solely for children growing up with a minority
Our present society makes heavy demands on the linguistic language. Young children are strongly ‘programmed’ for com-
ability of the population, both native and immigrant. Poor mas- munication. It is important to make the most of this and of the

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Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 257
258 M. Westerlund and D. Lagerberg

plasticity of the young human brain indicating a high learning First-born children are usually verbally ahead of later-born
potential in the early years of life. 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
Some maternal factors related to child language their children. Mothers of first-borns have been found to make
more explicit attempts at eliciting language from their toddlers
Many studies have elucidated the strong link between socio-
than mothers of later-born children (Jones & Adamson 1987).
economic status (SES) and children’s verbal abilities (e.g. Born-
Few studies have addressed specific associations between
stein et al. 1998; Hoff-Ginsberg 1998; Locke et al. 2002). Core
language development and children’s temperament. However,
factors often applied in definitions of SES are education, occu-
according to Dixon and Smith (2000), mothers’ ratings of their
pation and income. As for early language development, the most
toddler’s attention were related to language production. This
influential SES component seems to be education, particularly
was later verified in a study by Karrass and colleagues (2002).
maternal education, as the mother tends to be intensively
involved in daily interactions offering rich opportunities for
conversation. Some factors related to book reading with young children
The importance of SES appears to be mediated by commu-
As pointed out by Scarborough and Dobrich (1994), children
nication style (Bornstein et al. 1998; Landry et al. 2002; Hoff &
from lower-class families are usually read to less often than
Tian 2005), e.g. the amount and complexity of verbal commu-
children from higher-SES families (Bornstein et al. 1998; Hoff-
nication available to the child (Hart & Risley 1995). Inviting the
Ginsberg 1998; Locke et al. 2002). However, Roberts and col-
child to take part in conversations, describing and explaining
leagues (2005) maintained that mothers’ education was only
what is around are activities likely to expand concept formation
mildly correlated with frequency of shared reading, and Kuo
and linguistic capacity (Manolson 1992; Girolametto et al.
and colleagues (2004) found indications of low reading fre-
1999). Low-SES mothers have been found to approach their
quencies even in better-off families.
children with many directives not linked to the child’s current
Communication style is probably related to reading prefer-
interest, as well as with requests calling for an expected response
ences in families of young children. Shared reading may be a
(Hoff-Ginsberg 1991). According to Landry and colleagues
marker of a generally stimulating environment (Karrass et al.
(2002), they may also use so-called ‘empty language’ (‘this’ and
2003). If so, parents most disposed to attend to their children’s
‘that’ instead of more specific language).
verbal and non-verbal signals in settings other than reading
Maternal age can be hypothesized to influence child’s lan-
would also be the ones most inclined to read frequently with
guage directly, perhaps because older mothers may be more
them.
patient and talk more with their children, or because, con-
As far as is known by the authors, no study has explored a
versely, they are more tired than younger mothers, thus talking
possible association between mothers’ age and shared reading.
less with them. Pan and colleagues (2004) found no significant
However, an association might be hypothesized between paren-
associations of maternal age with child language at age 2.
tal views of the importance of linguistic stimulation and mater-
However, this study involved low-income families only, which
nal age.
may have restricted the potential scope for variations by mater-
Provided that girls are linguistically ahead of boys, and
nal age.
parents modify their reading habits to the child’s verbal ability,
then one could expect mothers to read more with their daugh-
ters. However, according to some studies, reading with young
Some child factors related to language
children does not differ between the genders (High et al. 1999;
Girls’ language development is usually ahead of boys’ (e.g. Roberts et al. 2005).
Bornstein & Haynes 1998; Locke et al. 2002). A slight female As to birth order, Kuo and colleagues (2004) found differing
advantage explaining between 1% and 3% of the variance was odds for daily reading depending on whether the child was an
reported from two large-scale studies of children aged only child or not. Children with siblings were read to more
8–30 months (Fenson et al. 1994; Galsworthy et al. 2000). A seldom.
Swedish study of more than 1000 children showed significant The relation between child temperament (attention) and
differences in favour of girls’ verbal comprehension and pro- book reading has been studied by Karrass and colleagues (2003)
duction (Berglund et al. 2005). in middle-class families with 8-month-old children. No associa-

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Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257–266

tion was found between mothers’ book reading and the child’s
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 significant increases
in both receptive and expressive language for children of
18 months and older, whose parents had received children’s
books, educational materials and advice about sharing books.
Hoff-Ginsberg (1991) studied mothers and their 18–29-
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 findings 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 children’s 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
‘difficultness’ (as an aspect of temperament). The association of
reading habits with children’s language development was also
explored.
Participants
This paper drew on data from an extensive study of two cohorts
of children (born September 2000–August 2001 and April
Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257–266
Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children 259
2003–March 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 first-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 01–342).
Procedure and questionnaire
When visiting the CHCs for their children’s 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 mother’s perception of the child’s temperament.
The mothers were also asked to rate the quality of their
communication with the child as well as the child’s current
vocabulary.
Description of variables
• Maternal education (four categories, ordinal scale): primary
school or lower, 2 years of secondary school, 3–4 years of sec-
ondary school and university/college.
• Mother’s 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 child’s 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
five scores: 1 (very little), 2 (rather little), 3 (moderately), 4
(rather much) and 5 (very much). Total score was calculated
© 2008 The Authors
260 M. Westerlund and D. Lagerberg
as the means of all items. Scale dimensionality was good
(Cronbach’s alpha: 0.92). Dichotomized into high (>mean for
whole sample) and low (ⱕmean) for bivariate analyses and
calculations of effect sizes; continuous variable in multiple
regression analyses.
• Maternal age (year of birth) when completing the question-
naire (five categories for univariate and bivariate analyses;
continuous variable in multiple regression analyses).
• The child’s gender and birth order dichotomized into male/
female and first-born or not.
• The child’s difficultness according to Bates (Bates et al. 1979):
mother’s mean score on nine items ranging from 1 (low dif-
ficultness) to 7 (high difficultness). The mother is encouraged
to compare her child with an imagined ‘average’ child. Items
deal with easiness–difficulty to calm the child, irritability,
crying, temper, etc. Scale dimensionality was good (Cron-
bach’s alpha: 0.83). Dichotomized into low (<mean for whole
sample) and high (ⱖmean) for bivariate analyses; continuous
variable in multiple regression analyses.
• Shared book reading (five 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, 6–9 times,
3–5 times, 1–2 times, or never)? Dichotomized into <6 times/
week and ⱖ6 times/week for some bivariate analyses (Table 4)
and for calculations of effect sizes.
• The child’s 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 test–retest 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 significance tested
with the c2 method, and differences between means with the
analysis of variance (anova) procedure and Student’s t-test. To
© 2008 The Authors
Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257–266
Table 1. Means (M), standard deviations (SD) and ranges for
communication, child difficultness and expressive vocabulary
Variable n* M SD Range
Communication† 1077 4.15 0.64 1.00–5.00
Difficultness‡ 1089 3.55 0.83 1.00–6.33
Expressive vocabulary 1067 29.4 20.5 0–87
Total n = 1091.
*Varying ns are due to missing values.
†High scores are favourable.
‡Low scores are favourable.
control for independent variables, multiple linear regression
analyses with standardized beta weights were performed. Effect
sizes were calculated using Cohen’s 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 significant.
Results
The accuracy of the verbal checklist method was supported by
the findings, 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 satisfied with their communication with
the child: the average score exceeded 4 corresponding to ‘rather
much’. Child difficultness 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, finished primary school – whereas more
than 2/5 had a college or university education. Frequent reading
(ⱖ6 times/week) was reported for 65.9% of the children,
whereas 14.4% were read to more seldom (0–2 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 difficultness,
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.
 Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children 261

Table 2. Frequencies for maternal education, maternal age, child gender, was also a significant but weaker contribution by maternal age
child birth order and shared reading
(low, P = 0.0052). Maternal education, birth order and child
Independent variable n % difficultness did not contribute significantly to expressive
Maternal education vocabulary, controlling for other independent variables. The
Primary or less 105 9.6 significant association from the bivariate analysis with birth
Secondary: 2 years 188 17.2
Secondary: 3 or 4 years 313 28.7
order thus disappeared, and a significant association with
College or university 476 43.6 maternal age emerged when this variable was entered as a con-
Information missing 9 0.8 tinuous scale. Repeating the analysis for boys and girls sepa-
Maternal age
rately, the same variables yielded significant associations, except
18–24 84 7.7
25–29 255 23.4 for the association with maternal age in girls. The model
30–34 396 36.3 explained 9.65% of the variance among boys, and 5.44% of the
35–39 270 24.7
variance among girls (data not shown).
40–48 79 7.2
Information missing 7 0.6 The results of a multiple linear regression analysis using
Child gender shared reading as the dependent variable are shown in Table 6
Boys 546 50.0 with both genders pooled together.
Girls 545 50.0
Child birth order
The model explained 16.88% of the variance (d.f. = 6,
First-born 501 45.9 F = 36.88, P < 0.0001). The strongest association, controlling
Later-born 590 54.1 for other variables, appeared for communication: mothers
Shared reading
who perceived their communicative capacity to be good
10 or more times/week 464 42.5
6–9 times/week 255 23.4 tended to read more with their children. Children of highly
3–5 times/week 207 19.0 educated mothers and first-born children participated more
1–2 times/week 133 12.2
in shared reading. There was a positive significant association
Never 24 2.2
Information missing 8 0.7 between reading and maternal age as a continuous variable (all
Total 1091 100 P-values < 0.0001). Finally, the significant association with
gender (girls) remained after controlling for other indepen-
dent variables (P = 0.0006). Analysing boys and girls sepa-
There was no significant association between maternal edu- rately, the same independent variables as for the two genders
cation and child vocabulary (Table 3). On the other hand, there pooled together showed significant associations with reading.
was a steep and highly significant increase in reading frequency The model explained 17.01% of the variance among boys and
with rising maternal education (Table 4). Children whose 15.49% of the variance among girls (data not shown).
mothers felt they communicated well with them had a signifi-
cantly larger expressive vocabulary and participated signifi-
Effect sizes
cantly more in reading than other children. The same was true
for girls and first-born children as related to boys and later- In order to convey an idea of the potential ‘impact’ of reading on
borns respectively. There were no significant associations for expressive vocabulary, given variations in gender and perceived
either vocabulary or frequent reading with child difficultness. communication, effect sizes are presented in Table 7. Effect size
Frequent reading was strongly and significantly related to should be interpreted as the proportion of one SD added to
expressive vocabulary (Table 3). expressive vocabulary by frequent book reading, i.e. at least 6
times/week.
Boys whose mothers judged their communication as less
Multiple linear regression analyses
than good and who were not frequently read to reached a
Table 5 shows the results of a multiple linear regression analysis mean of 17.8 words, to be compared with 23.8 for comparable
with expressive vocabulary as the dependent variable. Both boys who were frequently read to, a difference of 0.35 SD. Girls
genders were pooled together. with a good communication had an expressive vocabulary
The model explained 12.91% of the variance (d.f. = 7, of 31.6 words if they participated less frequently in shared
F = 22.98, P < 0.0001). The most important factor was the reading, and 38.2 words if they were read to 6 times per week
child’s gender (girl), followed by shared reading (frequent) and or more (0.32 SD). In general, frequent reading was associated
perceived communication (good) (all P-values < 0.0001). There with a gain in expressive vocabulary of about 0.4 SD (an

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262 M. Westerlund and D. Lagerberg

Table 3. Expressive vocabulary by maternal

Dependent variable: expressive vocabulary
education, communication, maternal age,
Independent variable n Mean SD Range P child gender, child birth order, child
difficultness and shared reading.
Maternal education (d.f. = 3) 0.1628
Primary or less 103 26.8 21.8 0–80
Secondary: 2 years 185 29.8 20.9 0–86
Secondary: 3 or 4 years 306 31.4 20.4 0–84
College or university 465 28.6 20.0 0–87
Communication* <0.0001
Score >mean 555 32.2 20.5 0–87
Score ⱕmean 500 26.1 19.8 0–84
Maternal age (d.f. = 4) 0.1501
18–24 83 32.3 21.3 0–79
25–29 250 31.2 20.5 0–86
30–34 388 28.8 19.7 0–85
35–39 263 27.3 21.4 0–84
40–48 76 29.1 20.0 2–87
Child gender <0.0001
Boys 533 24.3 18.7 0–86
Girls 534 34.4 20.9 0–87
Child birth order 0.0021
First-born 493 31.4 20.8 0–86
Later-born 574 27.6 20.1 0–87
Child difficultness† 0.0934
Score <mean 495 30.5 20.9 0–87
Score ⱖmean 571 28.4 20.1 0–86
Shared reading (d.f. = 4) <0.0001
10 or more times/week 452 34.3 21.1 0–87
6–9 times/week 252 29.3 19.5 0–86
3–5 times/week 205 24.6 18.8 0–85
1–2 times/week 130 22.0 17.9 0–80
Never 22 14.0 14.4 0–64
Total 1067 29.4 20.5 0–87

Significance tests by analysis of variance and Student’s t-test. Observations with missing values excluded.
*High scores are favourable.
†Low scores are favourable.

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 findings
Good communication quality, low maternal age, female gender
and frequent reading were significantly and independently
associated with children’s expressive vocabulary. High maternal
education, good communication quality, higher maternal age,
female gender and being a first-born child was significantly 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 difficultness
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 significant 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 17–19 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 conflicting 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

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Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257–266
 Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children 263

Table 4. Shared reading by maternal

Dependent variable: shared reading
education, communication, maternal age,
child gender, child birth order and child Independent variable n <6 times/week ⱖ6 times/week P
difficultness
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 ⱕmean 506 43.5 56.5
Maternal age (d.f. = 4) 0.2035
18–24 82 37.8 62.2
25–29 251 37.8 62.2
30–34 396 29.5 70.5
35–39 269 33.5 66.5
40–48 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 difficultness (d.f. = 1)† 0.7420
Score <mean 504 33.1 66.9
Score ⱖmean 578 34.1 65.9
Total 1083 33.6 66.4

Significance tests by c2. 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

Standardized
Independent variable Parameter estimate Standard error 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 difficultness 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 R2 = 0.1291, d.f. = 7, F = 22.98, P < 0.0001.

children’s 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 findings.
To our knowledge, our study is the only one analysing a
possible connection between mother’s age and frequent
reading with children. The proportion frequently read to
reached a peak in maternal age group 30–34, after which it
re-declined (Table 4, not significant). When entered as a con-
tinuous variable in the multiple regression analysis, however,
maternal age resulted in a significant positive association with
reading (Table 6).

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264 M. Westerlund and D. Lagerberg

Table 6. Multiple regression analysis with shared reading as the dependent variable

Standardized
Independent variable Parameter estimate Standard error 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 difficultness -0.00458 0.03959 -0.00335 -0.12 0.9080

Both genders pooled together.

n = 1061. Adjusted R2 = 0.1688, d.f. = 6, F = 36.88, P < 0.0001.

Table 7. Mean sizes of expressive vocabulary for combinations of child gender and mother’s perceived communication, given that shared reading did
or did not occur six or more times/week
Shared reading <6 Shared reading ⱖ6
times/week times/week
Child gender and mother’s
perceived communication n Mean n Mean t P Effect size*
Boys
Communication less than good, ⱕmean 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, ⱕmean 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 Cohen’s 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.

Contrary to the association between age and frequent reading,
the relation between maternal 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 association between
child vocabulary and maternal age was negative, contrary to
findings 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 findings of High and colleagues (1999),
Karrass and colleagues (2003), and Roberts and colleagues
(2005), we found girls to be significantly more involved in
reading than boys (Tables 4 & 6). This does not appear to have
been shown in earlier research.
A finding contrary to earlier studies (Hoff-Ginsberg 1998;
Berglund et al. 2005) was the non-significant difference in
vocabulary between first- 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 and birth order. Furthermore, the difficultness
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

© 2008 The Authors

Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257–266

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 influencing our
results in uncontrolled ways. The proportion of immigrants was
rather small, however, and it was not feasible to make further
classifications 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 term ‘effect 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 findings 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 influence and
change. Parents of young children are highly motivated to
receive information that may benefit their child’s development.
Stimulating parents to observe, comment upon and encourage
the child’s 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
Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Child: care, health and development, 34, 2, 257–266
Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children 265
reaching parents and children. While awaiting more studies to
establish a causal relationship, we still wish to emphasize the
importance of our findings. Good communication and frequent
reading give fuel to children’s 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 Allmänna Barnhuset. Sincere thanks
are due to all experiment and control nurses for their interest in
the study and for their generous contribution in time and efforts.
Key messages
Contrary to demographic factors, communication and
reading can be influenced and improved in parents of young
children. Even if the variance in vocabulary explained by
reading habits was not large, a few per cent’s improvement
would be of high importance on the population level. More
research is needed to establish the causal paths by which
reading is linked to language development. In the meantime,
we strongly recommend organizations working with parents
and children to develop methods for encouraging parents to
communicate positively with their children and introduce
them at an early age to the fascinating world of books.
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