Relations among Socioeconomic Status, Perceived Stress, and the Home Language Environment.

The analyses used mostly concurrent data, so they cannot show whether stress changes language input or language input changes stress. LENA recorded general speech in the home, not specifically child-directed speech. Perceived stress was measured with one self-report scale, and the authors note it may miss chronic or severe stress. Full data coverage was 54.2% in the Combined Infant Sample and 76.8% in the Child Sample. The samples were recruited in New York City and selected for socioeconomic diversity, so findings may not apply to other regions or populations. The Child Sample used LENA beyond the formally validated age range of four years, although reliability checks were reported. Supplemental stress measures, including hair cortisol and a stress composite, were exploratory and limited by small sample size. The estimates had relatively large standard errors, and the authors call for replication.

Do not conclude that reducing mothers’ perceived stress will increase adult words or conversational turns in the home. The study measured perceived stress and home language counts at the same time, found no association, and did not test an intervention that changes stress.