Assessing the Quantity and Quality of Language Used by Mothers and Fathers of Children with Down Syndrome During Shared Book Reading.
Elizabeth Hilvert, Emily Lorang, Nell Maltman and 1 others
PMID 35388779WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers spoke more and described things more often.
Fathers read the book text more and used more grammatically complex language. Parents rarely used abstract talk, which linked to child language skills, so coaching fathers on this specific input type may be a useful intervention target.
Key findings
01Mothers produced more utterances and used a higher proportion of descriptive language, while fathers used a higher proportion of reading utterances.
02Fathers used more grammatically complex input than mothers, with a medium effect size.
03Child language skills were positively associated with specific types of parental input, such as paternal decontextualized talk and maternal lexical diversity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Small sample size (15 children) limits generalizability. Wide age range of children (2 to 5 years) may mask developmental differences. Cross-sectional design cannot determine if parental input causes language gains or if children with better language elicit more complex input.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume these differences mean one parent is a better language model. The study is small and cross-sectional, so it describes what happened during these readings, not what causes language development.