Katherine J. Alcock

Children’s first words are frequently recorded to be nouns, rather than verbs, but data from some languages (notably some Asian and African languages, including Mandarin, Korean, and Ngas) and some methodologies (especially spontaneous speech recordings) suggest that verbs can be represented as early as nouns. Variables that potentially impact early verb knowledge include the structure of the language children are learning and whether it is verb production or comprehension that is investigated. We investigated longitudinal data from Kenya of children’s ( N = 500) vocabulary production and comprehension using Communicative Development Inventories. Children’s caregivers completed overlapping inventories designed for younger infants (completed at age 12 months and designed for ages 8–16 months), and for older toddlers (parallel forms completed at age 18 and 24 months and designed for ages 16–30 months). The inventories were structured to include words acquired at equivalent ages across word classes (e.g. nouns acquired at a median age of 11 months and verbs acquired at the same median age) but the interactions between word classes and children’s age and the modality in which they know the word (comprehension only or production as well) indicate that nouns and verbs do not follow the same trajectory across acquisition. Nouns emerge relatively earlier in production and comprehension, while verbs emerge earlier in comprehension, and their production increases as children grow older. We conclude that previous findings by Goldfield and Stolt et al. are also true for these Bantu languages: that the noun advantage in early words is seen in studies where production is emphasised, and early verb knowledge can be missed if comprehension is not assessed.

Children’s first words are frequently recorded to be nouns, rather than verbs, but data from some languages (notably some Asian and African languages including Mandarin, Korean and Ngas) and some methodologies (especially spontaneous speech recordings) suggest that verbs can be represented as early as nouns. Variables that potentially impact early verb knowledge include the structure of the language children are learning and whether it is verb production or comprehension that is investigated. We investigated longitudinal data from Kenya of children’s (N=500) vocabulary production and comprehension using Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs). Children’s caregivers completed overlapping inventories designed for younger infants (completed at age 12 months and designed for ages 8-16 months), and for older toddlers, (parallel forms completed at age 18 and 24 months and designed for ages 16-30 months). The inventories were structured to include words acquired at equivalent ages across word classes (e.g. nouns acquired at a median age of 11 months and verbs acquired at the same median age) but the interactions between word classes and children’s age and the modality in which they know the word (comprehension only or production as well) indicate that nouns and verbs do not follow the same trajectory across acquisition. Nouns emerge relatively earlier in production and comprehension while verbs emerge earlier in comprehension and their production increases as children grow older. We conclude that the findings of Goldfield (2000) and of Stolt et al. (2008) are also true for these Bantu languages: that the noun advantage in early words is seen in studies where production is emphasised, and early verb knowledge can be missed if comprehension is not assessed.

Introduction: Children's early language and communication skills are efficiently measured using parent report, for example, communicative development inventories (CDIs). These have scalable potential to determine risk of later language delay, and associations between delay and risk factors such as prematurity and poverty. However, there may be measurement difficulties in parent reports, including anomalous directions of association between child age/socioeconomic status and reported language. Findings vary on whether parents may report older infants as having smaller vocabularies than younger infants, for example.Methods: We analysed data from the UK Communicative Development Inventory (Words and Gestures); UK‐CDI (W&G) to determine whether anomalous associations would be replicated in this population, and/or with gesture. In total 1204 families of children aged 8–18 months (598 girls, matched to UK population for income, parental education and ethnicity as far as possible) completed Vocabulary and Gesture scales of the UK‐CDI (W&G).Results: Overall scores on the Gesture scale showed more significant relationships with biological risk factors including prematurity than did Vocabulary scores. Gesture also showed more straightforward relationships with social risk factors including income. Relationships between vocabulary and social risk factors were less straightforward; some at‐risk groups reported higher vocabulary scores than other groups.Discussion: We conclude that vocabulary report may be less accurate than gesture for this age. Parents have greater knowledge of language than gesture milestones, hence may report expectations for vocabulary, not observed vocabulary. We also conclude that gesture should be included in early language scales partly because of its greater, more straightforward association with many risk factors for language delay.WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: We already know that it is possible to measure children's early communicative skills using parent‐completed inventories (Communicative Development Inventories, CDIs) and that some aspects of early communication can predict which children are likely to go on to have long‐lasting communicative development difficulties. We also know that most uses of CDIs include only vocabulary, not early gesture. In addition, child‐related and family‐related variables such as prematurity, family history of language disorder and socioeconomic status may be related to communication development. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: We looked at a large sample (N = approx. 1200) of families representative of the UK population with an infant aged 8 through 18 months and asked them about their infant's comprehension and production vocabulary as well as their early gesture skills. Gesture was more closely related to possible risk factors for communication development difficulties, for example, family history of communication difficulties, prematurity and multiple birth status. Vocabulary was only related in a straightforward way to family history and had complex relationships to socioeconomic differences. Families with different economic backgrounds may approach questions about their child's development in different ways. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: We suggest that clinicians need to ensure that not only vocabulary but also gesture ability is assessed when looking at very early communication skills. We also suggest that gesture may be more predictive of later communicative development difficulties, and that clinicians need to be sure that parents are clear on how vocabulary questions are asked and what exactly is required of them in answering these types of questions.

Young children (under around 6 years) fail to understand that changing the appearance of a person, object, or animal does not change its underlying reality. They appear to believe that a cat wearing a dog mask is genuinely a dog (appearance/reality distinction) and that a boy that wears a dress is genuinely a girl (sex/gender constancy). These skills may be affected by a variety of influences: testing methods, training on the constancy of biological traits, child or sibling’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and child’s diagnosis of autism.This study sought to replicate Arthur et al. (2009)’s study showing that experimental lessons emphasising the constancy or otherwise of biological traits affected appearance/reality and sex/gender constancy performance. It examined the influence of school lessons with content on sex/gender stereotyping and pro/anti constancy on young English children (mean age 5;6 years, N = 58)’s performance on appearance/reality and sex/gender constancy tasks.Children performed above chance on sex/gender stability (change over time) but below chance on sex/gender constancy and appearance/reality tasks (change due to superficial alterations). These scores are comparable to almost all previous studies. Children’s scores were not influenced by school lesson content, though not all schools provided content. Conclusions are drawn about the effect of lesson content, which may be too diffuse and long term to affect performance. The level of children’s performance and what this means in absolute terms about children’s understanding of sex/gender stereotypes and the possibility of a child changing sex/gender is also discussed.

Culture is a key determinant of children’s development both in its own right and for understanding the generalizability of developmental phenomena. Studying the role of culture in development requires information about participants’ demographic backgrounds. However, both reporting and treatment of demographic data are limited and inconsistent in child development research. A barrier to reporting demographic data in a consistent fashion is that no standardized tool currently exists to collect these data. Variation in cultural expectations, family structures, and life circumstances across communities make the creation of a unifying instrument challenging. Here, we present a framework to standardize demographic reporting for early child development (birth to 3 years of age), focusing on six sociodemographic construct categories: biological information, gestational status, health status, community of descent, caregiving environment, and socioeconomic status. For each, we discuss potential measurement items and provide guidance for their use and adaptation to different contexts. These items are stored in a repository of context-adapted questionnaires that provide a consistent approach to obtaining and reporting demographic information so that these data can be archived and shared in a more standardized format. The public significance of this work is to facilitate diversification of participants within developmental psychology by providing a framework for capturing demographic diversity.

Social sciences researchers emphasize that new technologies can overcome the limitations of small and homogenous samples. In research on early language development, which often uses parental reports, taking the testing online might be particularly compelling. Due to logistical limitations, previous studies on bilingual children have explored the language development trajectories in general (e.g., by including few and largely set apart timepoints), or focused on small, homogeneous samples. The present study protocol presents a new, on-going study which uses new technologies to collect longitudinal data continuously from parents of multilingual, bilingual, and monolingual children. Our primary aim is to establish the developmental trajectories in Polish-British English and Polish-Norwegian bilingual children and Polish monolingual children aged 0–3 years with the use of mobile and web-based applications. These tools allow parents to report their children’s language development as it progresses, and allow us to characterize children’s performance in each language (the age of reaching particular language milestones). The project’s novelty rests on its use of mobile technologies to characterize the bilingual and monolingual developmental trajectory from the very first words to broader vocabulary and multiword combinations.

Purpose: Early motor abilities (gesture, oral motor, and gross/fine skills) are related to language abilities, and this is not due to an association with cognitive or symbolic abilities: Oral motor skills are uniquely associated with language abilities at 21 months of age. It is important to determine whether this motor–language relationship continues beyond the earliest stage of language development to understand language acquisition better and better predict which children may have lasting language difficulties.Method: In this longitudinal study, we assessed language comprehension and production, oral motor skill, gross/fine motor skill, and meaningless manual gesture at ages 3 years (N= 89) and 4 years (N= 71), comparing the contribution of motor skill and earlier (at 21 months of age) language ability. We also examined covariates: nonverbal cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, and stimulation in the home as measured on the Home Screening Questionnaire.Results: Motor abilities continue to have a significant relationship with language abilities independent of other factors in the preschool years. Meaningless manual gesture ability, gross/fine motor skill, and oral motor skill were still associated with language skill at 3 years of age; these relationships are not explained by the contribution of cognitive abilities or earlier language abilities.Conclusions: Relationships between early motor skill and language development persist into preschool years and are not explained by other cognitive or home factors, nor by a relationship with earlier language ability. This finding should lead to a better understanding of the origins of language abilities.

Background: Schistosomiasis and other worm infections have been associated with growth and cognitive impairments; however, whether treatment reverses these effects is uncertain. Moreover, mechanisms linking these infections to cognition are not clear. We aimed to compare growth and cognitive benefits of intensive versus standard anthelminthic treatment in school-aged-children and explore processes that might be involved. We hypothesised that intensive treatment would have greater benefits than standard treatment. Methods: The study was nested within a cluster-randomised trial of either quarterly single-dose praziquantel of 40mg/kg to treat Schistosoma mansoni plus triple dose albendazole of 400mg (intensive treatment) to treat soil-transmitted worms including Ascaris lumbricoides, hookworm and Trichuris trichiura, or annual single-dose praziquantel 40mg/kg plus six-monthly single-dose albendazole 400mg (standard treatment) conducted in the Koome islands in Lake Victoria, Uganda (ISRCTN47196031). Children aged 5-9 years (N=384) were assessed on primary outcomes (height, weight and eight measures of cognitive ability), worm infection, and proposed mediators of worm effects (cytokines, iron status, physical activity) at one year (intensive n=85; standard n=64) and at two years (intensive n=158; standard n=128) of the intervention. Linear regression was used to examine intervention effects on height, weight and cognitive performance. Linear mixed effects models were used to study changes in growth and cognitive performance between the two arms across the two time-points. Results: Intensive treatment resulted in lower Schistosoma mansoni prevalence than standard treatment (at one year, 41% versus 70%; adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=0.24, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.49; at two years, 39% versus 69%; aOR=0.27; 95% CI: 0.16, 0.43) but there were no significant differences in growth and cognitive outcomes at either time-point. Worms and treatment showed no consistent association with the proposed mediators of worm effects. Conclusion: Reduction in worm burden may not improve growth and cognitive outcomes in high S. mansoni transmission settings. Possible implications are discussed.