Paternal Sensitivity and Children’s Cognitive and Socioemotional Outcomes: A Meta-Analytic Review

In a series of meta-analyses, paternal sensitivity was associated with children’s (age range: 7 months–9 years) overall cognitive functioning (N = 3,193; k = 23; r = .19), including language skills (k = 9; r = .21), cognitive ability (k = 9; r = .18), and executive function (k = 8; r = .19). Paternal sensitivity was not associated with children’s overall socioemotional functioning (N = 2,924; k = 24; r = −.03) or internalizing problems, but it was associated with children’s emotion regulation (k = 7; r = .22) and externalizing problems (k = 19; r = −.08). In the broad cognitive functioning, executive function, broad socioemotional functioning, and externalizing problems meta-analyses, child age was a significant moderator.     

Child Language Difficulties and Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms: A Meta-Analysis

This study conducted two meta-analyses to synthesize the association between children’s language skills and two broad-band dimensions of psychopathology: internalizing and externalizing. Pooled estimates across 139 samples (externalizing k = 105; internalizing k = 90) and 147,305 participants (age range: 2–17 years old; mean % males: 53.75; mean % White participants: 55.59; mean % minority participants: 43.12) indicated small but significant associations between child language skills and externalizing problems (Hedges’ g = .22) and between language skills and internalizing problems (Hedges’ g = .23). The association between language difficulties and externalizing problems was stronger amongst males and in children with low versus high sociodemographic risk. Implications of the results for theory and practice are discussed.     

A Little Autonomy Support Goes a Long Way: Daily Autonomy-Supportive Parenting,Child Well-Being,Parental Need Fulfillment,and Change in Child,Family, and Parent Adjustment Across the Adaptation to the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study examined the effects of daily parental autonomy support on changes in child behavior, family environment, and parental well-being across 3 weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Day-to-day associations among autonomy-supportive parenting, parental need fulfillment, and child well-being were also assessed. Parents (longitudinal N = 469; M_age = 42.93, SD_age = 6.40) of school children (6–19 years) reported on adjustment measures at two measurement occasions and completed up to 21 daily online questionnaires in the weeks between these assessments. Results from dynamic structural equation models suggested reciprocal positive relations among autonomy-supportive parenting and parental need fulfillment. Daily parental autonomy support, parental need fulfillment, and child well-being partially predicted change in adjustment measures highlighting the central role of daily parenting for children’s adjustment during the pandemic.     

Something About the Way You Speak: A Meta-analysis on Children’s Linguistic-based Social Preferences

There is growing interest in the role of linguistic cues (accents, dialects, language) in driving children’s social preferences. This meta-analysis integrated 131 effect sizes involving 2,680 infants and children from 2 days old to 11 years. Overall, children prefer native-accent, native-dialect, and native-language speakers over non-native counterparts (d = 0.57). Meta-regression highlighted that bilinguals (d = 0.93) do not exhibit less native-speaker preference compared to monolinguals (d = 0.62). Children displayed stronger preferences based on accent (d = 1.04) than dialect (d = 0.44) and language (d = 0.39). Children’s cultural background, exposure to non-native speech, age, and preference measure were not significant moderators. The data are discussed in light of several theoretical explanations for when and why children show linguistic-based social preferences.     

Shared Picture Book Reading Interventions for Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Interventions that train parents to share picture books with children are seen as a strategy for supporting child language development. We conducted meta-analyses using robust variance estimation modeling on results from 19 RCTs (N_total = 2,594; M_childage = 1–6 years). Overall, book-sharing interventions had a small sized effect on both expressive language (d = 0.41) and receptive language (d = 0.26). They had a large effect on caregiver book-sharing competence (d = 1.01). The impact of the intervention on child language was moderated by intervention dosage, with lower dosage associated with a minimal impact. Child age and caregiver education level were unrelated to child outcome. This review and meta-analysis confirms the promise of book-sharing interventions for enhancing and accelerating child language development.     

The Rise in Single-Mother Families and Children’s Cognitive Development: Evidence From Three British Birth Cohorts

This article assessed changes in the association between single motherhood and children’s verbal cognitive ability at age-11 using data from three cohorts of British children, born in 1958 (n = 10,675), 1970 (n = 8,933) and 2000 (n = 9,989), and mediation analysis. Consistent with previous studies, direct effects were small and insignificant. For those born in 1958 and 1970 indirect effects, operating through reduced economic and parental resources, were associated with −.107-SD to −.156-SD lower attainment. Differences between the two cohorts, and by children’s age when parents separated, were insignificant. For the 2000 cohort, effect sizes for children born to single mothers did not change significantly (−.112-SD) but attenuated for children whose parents separated in early childhood (−.076-SD) or while of school age (−.054-SD).     

Preschoolers rely on rich speech representations to process variable speech

To learn language, children must map variable input to categories such as phones and words. How do children process variation and distinguish between variable pronunciations (“shoup” for soup) versus new words? The unique sensory experience of children with cochlear implants, who learn speech through their device's degraded signal, lends new insight into this question. In a mispronunciation sensitivity eyetracking task, children with implants (N = 33), and typical hearing (N = 24; 36–66 months; 36F, 19M; all non-Hispanic white), with larger vocabularies processed known words faster. But children with implants were less sensitive to mispronunciations than typical hearing controls. Thus, children of all hearing experiences use lexical knowledge to process familiar words but require detailed speech representations to process variable speech in real time.     

Socioeconomic Disparities in Language Input Are Associated With Children's Language-Related Brain Structure and Reading Skills

The mechanisms underlying socioeconomic disparities in children's reading skills are not well understood. This study examined associations among socioeconomic background, home linguistic input, brain structure, and reading skills in 5-to-9-year-old children (N = 94). Naturalistic home audio recordings and high-resolution, T1-weighted MRI scans were acquired. Children who experienced more adult–child conversational turns or adult words had greater left perisylvian cortical surface area. Language input mediated the association between parental education and left perisylvian cortical surface area. Language input was indirectly associated with children's reading skills via left perisylvian surface area. Left perisylvian surface area mediated the association between parental education and children's reading skills. Language experience may thus partially explain socioeconomic disparities in language-supporting brain structure and in turn reading skills.     

Parental Job Loss and Early Child Development in the Great Recession

The study examines whether and why parental job loss may stifle early child development, relying on cohort data from the population of children born in Ireland in 2007–2008 (N = 6,303) and followed around the time of the Great Recession (2008–2013). A novel approach to mediation analysis is deployed, testing expectations from models of family investment and family stress. Parental job loss exacerbates problem behavior at ages 3 and 5 (.05–.08 SDs), via the channels of parental income and maternal negative parenting. By depressing parental income, job loss also hampers children’s verbal ability at age 3 (.03 SDs). This is tied to reduced affordability of formal childcare, highlighting a policy lever that might tame the intergenerational toll of job loss.     

Impact of Process Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care on Academic Outcomes: Longitudinal Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis studies the association of pedagogical processes in early childhood care and education with outcomes in two academic domains: language and literacy as well as mathematics. It synthesizes evidence from 17 longitudinal studies in nine European countries with 16,461 children in regular center-based care spanning the period between ages 3 and 16. Results of a three-level meta-analysis provided small overall effect sizes for both global and domain-specific process quality, and indicated lasting associations with academic development over children’s school career (ES = .11, Cohen’s d = .22, and ES = .10, Cohen’s d = .20). Effects varied by outcome domain, type of process measure, and differences in adopted analyses, with important implications for pedagogical practice and future research.     

Peer Effects on Early Language Development in Dual Language Learners

This study investigated the vocabulary development of children (N = 547) from linguistically and socioeconomically diverse classrooms in Germany from age 3 in preschool to age 7 in Grade 1. The results showed that for dual language learners (DLLs, n = 107) growth rates in their German majority language skills varied over classrooms. Compared to monolingual children, DLLs improved faster in classrooms with higher peer-level skills in the majority language than DLLs in classrooms with lower peer-level skills (controlling for socioeconomic status and classroom quality). DLLs showed stronger growth dynamics than monolingual children during later preschool stages. The findings highlight the role of preschool peers in DLLs’ acquisition of the majority language before entering elementary school.     

Does Exposure to Code-Switching Influence Language Performance in Bilingual Children?

This study investigated whether the effect of exposure to code-switching on bilingual children's language performance varied depending on verbal working memory (WM). A large sample of school-aged Spanish–English bilingual children (N = 174, M_age = 7.78) was recruited, and children were administered language measures in English and Spanish. The frequency with which the children were exposed to code-switching was gathered through parent report. For children with high verbal WM, greater exposure to code-switching was associated with higher levels of language ability. In contrast, for children with lower verbal WM, greater exposure to code-switching was associated with lower levels of language ability. These findings indicate that children's cognitive processing capacity dictates whether exposure to code-switching facilitates or hinders language skills.     

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Conversational Turn-Taking and Vocabulary Growth in Early Language Development

Children acquire language embedded within the rich social context of interaction. This paper reports on a longitudinal study investigating the developmental relationship between conversational turn-taking and vocabulary growth in English-acquiring children (N = 122) followed between 9 and 24 months. Daylong audio recordings obtained every 3 months provided several indices of the language environment, including the number of adult words children heard in their environment and their number of conversational turns. Vocabulary was measured independently via parental report. Growth curve analyses revealed a bidirectional relationship between conversational turns and vocabulary growth, controlling for the amount of words in children’s environments. The results are consistent with theoretical approaches that identify social interaction as a core component of early language acquisition.     

Reduced Autobiographical Memory Specificity Among Maltreated Preschoolers: The Indirect Effect of Neglect Through Maternal Reminiscing

Maternal reminiscing and preschoolers’ (M = 5.00 years, SD = 1.11) autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) were examined among abusive (n = 24), neglecting (n = 78), emotionally maltreating (n = 32), and demographically similar nonmaltreating families (n = 74). Neglect was negatively associated with child AMS and the quantity of maternal elaborations. In a moderated mediation model, neglect was negatively associated with the quantity of maternal elaborations, which was positively associated with AMS when mothers reminisced in a coherent and sensitive manner (i.e., affective quality). In the context of high maternal affective quality, maternal elaborative quantity accounted for reduced AMS among neglected preschoolers. The findings extend observations of reduced AMS to neglected preschoolers and inform theoretical models of autobiographical memory development.     

For Better or for Worse? Positive and Negative Parental Influences on Young Children's Executive Function

Despite rapidly growing research on parental influences on children's executive function (EF), the uniqueness and specificity of parental predictors and links between adult EF and parenting remain unexamined. This 13-month longitudinal study of 117 parent–child dyads (60 boys; M_age at Time 1 = 3.94 years, SD = 0.53) included detailed observational coding of parent–child interactions and assessed adult and child EF and child verbal ability (VA). Supporting a differentiated view of parental influence, negative parent–child interactions and parental scaffolding showed unique and specific associations with child EF, whereas the home learning environment and parental language measures showed global associations with children's EF and VA.     

Infant and Toddler Child-Care Quality and Stability in Relation to Proximal and Distal Academic and Social Outcomes

This study considered the quality and stability of infant and toddler nonparental child care from 6 to 36 months in relation to language, social, and academic skills measured proximally at 36 months and distally at kindergarten. Quality was measured separately as caregiver–child verbal interactions and caregiver sensitivity, and stability was measured as having fewer sequential child-care caregivers. This longitudinal examination involved a subsample (N = 1,055) from the Family Life Project, a representative sample of families living in rural counties in the United States. Structural equation modeling revealed that children who experienced more positive caregiver–child verbal interactions had higher 36-month language skills, which indirectly led to higher kindergarten academic and social skills. Children who experienced more caregiver stability had higher kindergarten social skills.     

The effects of robot-assisted language learning: A meta-analysis

Given the importance of learner–interlocutor interactions, social robots have received considerable attention in the field of language learning, as this technology can physically accompany learners, is equipped with common social behaviors, and can effectively communicate with learners for language acquisition. In line with the continuous efforts to examine the effects of using social robots in language learning, this study is a meta-analysis aiming to integrate the findings of previous experimental studies on robot-assisted language learning (RALL), focusing on language learning achievement. To this end, we selected 12 independent samples (N = 522) from the initial pool of 16 empirical studies—including 23 independent samples (N = 1147)—and computed effect sizes along with their standard errors. The results indicated that RALL had a medium-sized average effect (d = 0.59, SE = 0.09, 95% CI: 0.41–0.76) compared to non-RALL conditions, such as traditional learning conditions without technology (e.g., teacher-only) or other technology-mediated conditions (e.g., virtual agents and tablet PCs). We further identified several moderator variables (i.e., age group, target language, language domain, robots’ role, interaction type, type of non-RALL condition), and provided an in-depth discussion on how these variables were related to the effectiveness of using robots for language learning.     

The Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Child Telomere Length: Examining Self-Regulation as a Behavioral Mediator

Childhood adversity is linked to shortened telomere length (TL), but behavioral indicators of telomere attrition remain unclear. This study examined the association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and child TL, and if ACEs were indirectly associated with TL through children’s self-regulatory abilities (i.e., effortful control and self-control). Hypotheses were tested using national data from teachers, parents, and their children (N = 2,527; M_age = 9.35, SD = .36 years). More ACEs were uniquely associated with short TL, and low self-control mediated the association between more ACEs and short TL. While longitudinal studies are needed to strengthen claims of causation, this study identifies a pathway from ACEs to TL that should be explored further.