Family Influence On Language Development

A child’s environment can influence their entire life. Family members are often a large part if not the largest part of a child’s environment. By that standard we could assume that family members impact a child’s development and more specifically their language development. Throughout my research I found the impact of siblings on vocabulary competences and parental home literacy involvement on school readiness.

The article Sibling Structure and Educational Achievement: How Do the Number of Siblings, Birth Order, and Birth Spacing Affect Children’s Vocabulary Competences? by Claudia Karwath, Ilona Relikowski and Monja Schmitt is a great resource for understanding how a family can impact a child’s vocabulary and early education. According to

the article, sibling structure or age, number of siblings, birth order, spacing, etcetera, impact’s a child’s “educational outcomes” (Karwath, Relikowski, & Schmitt, 2014, p. 372). Their research found a, “negative effect for increasing number of siblings particularly when children originate from families with a lower educational background” (Karwath, Relikowski, & Schmitt, 2014, p. 372). In reference to birth order, Karwath, Relikowski, and Schmitt found different effects based on parents’ education; children born into families with a lower education suffer if they are later-born children (2014, p. 372). Furthermore, “longer spacing between a child and his/her older siblings is positively related to vocabulary competences…With respect to possible changes across time, sibling effects appear to be rather stable at the end of primary education” (2014, p. 372). According to the article, there are two main theoretical approaches that explain the influences a sibling can have on “educational outcomes;” these approaches include the confluence model and the resource dilution hypothesis (Karwath, Relikowski, & Schmitt, 2014, p. 374).
Claire E.

Baker’s article Fathers’ and Mothers’ Home Literacy Involvement and Children’s Cognitive and Social Emotional Development: Implications for Family Literacy Programs examined the, “relations between fathers’ and mothers’ home literacy involvement at 24 months and children’s cognitive and social emotional development in preschool…using a large sample of African American and Caucasian families” (Baker, 2013, p. 184). Baker’s research has expanded my own research by looking at how parent involvement in literacy can improve a child’s school

experience.
Research on development indicates that parenting could be crucial during the first five years of a child’s life; during this time children are gaining cognitive and social emotional skills that coincide with school success (Baker, 2013, p.

184). According to Bronfenbrenner and his ecological theory, “adults in the child’s proximal environment likely have the most influence on the child’s cognitive and social emotional development. Particularly important are the close proximal processes or relationships within these contexts that are postulated to drive the development of the child” (as cited in Baker, 2013, p. 185). Although the majority of these studies discussed have focused on the mother’s role rather than the father’s role, “cognitively stimulating parent-child interactions,” in literature during the early childhood period, “promote reading, math, and social emotional skills prior to kindergarten” (as cited in Baker, 2013, p. 185). In Lily’s case, she has received this “cognitively stimulating parent-child interaction,” on a regular basis from a very young age, but Jack has not been as lucky. When he was younger, Jack was rarely read to from a

storybook.
This particular study conducted by Baker found, “…that mothers’ and fathers’ home literacy involvement made a significant positive contribution to children’s pre-K reading and math achievement… Second, mother-child shared book reading has been shown to be a key context for promoting children’s language, literacy, and reading skills” (as cited in Baker, 2013, p. 193). There are two main explanations for the findings. “First, early math requires sustained focus, recall, and coordination of information in novel ways” (Baker, 2013, p. 193). Furthermore, a positive impact, “of frequent home literacy involvement may be the promotion language and literacy skills that help to bolster other aspects of early achievement…” (as cited in Baker, 2013, p. 193).
In conclusion, these two articles summed up nicely how much of an impact a family can make on children and their developing minds and bodies.