The effects of primary caregiver language input on the lexical skills of 3-year-old children from different socioeconomic backgrounds

Abstract

A higher socioeconomic status (SES) is linked to better child lexical abilities. Enriched child-directed language input is associated with a high SES and contributes to better child lexical abilities. Research on the effects of primary caregiver language input on the lexical skills of young Maltese-dominant preschoolers is scarce. This study sought to explore the associations between caregiver language input, child lexical skills and SES in the local context. Thirty-eight 3;04-3;08 year-old typically-developing, Maltese-dominant children were recruited from 14 local state schools along with their primary caregivers. Depending on compound measures of paternal and maternal education and occupation, 10 caregiver-child participants were categorised as ‘low SES’, 17 participants were categorised as ‘medium SES’ and 11 participants were categorised as ‘high SES’. Maltese and English receptive picture name judgement and picture naming tasks were used to assess the children's receptive and expressive lexical skills. Samples of primary caregiver language input were obtained from naturalistic adult-child play sessions. The total number of word tokens and types (unique words) in caregiver input served as measures of input quantity and quality respectively. Data was analysed quantitatively using statistical tests. It was shown that caregivers with a higher SES exposed their children to language input that was superior in both quantity and quality when compared to their lower SES counterparts. A higher quantity and quality of caregiver input affected the children’s English lexical performance scores positively. There was no effect of caregiver language input on the children’s Maltese lexical abilities. Higher SES child participants performed better than their lower SES counterparts on the English receptive and productive lexical tasks but not on the Maltese tasks. There was no effect of SES on child-directed lexical mixing. These results imply that the quantity and quality of caregiver input are associated with SES and affect children’s second language lexical abilities.