Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is related to disparities in the development of both language and executive functioning (EF) skills. Emerging evidence suggests that language development may precede and provide necessary scaffolding for EF development in early childhood. The present preregistered study investigates how these skills co-develop…

The number of older siblings a child has is negatively correlated with the child's verbal skills, an effect that is well known in the literature. However, few studies have examined the effect of older siblings' sex, of the age gap between siblings, of having foreign-speaking parents, as well as the mediating role of parental interaction. Using…

There is evidence showing that both maturational and environmental factors can impact on later language development. On the one hand, preterm birth has been found to increase the risk of deficits in the preschool and school years. Preterm children show poorer auditory discrimination, reading difficulties, poor vocabulary, less complex expressive…

This longitudinal study investigates whether the development in executive control and bilingual experience predicts change in language control in bilingual children. Children were tested twice over the course of 1 year, using the language-switching paradigm and the Simon task. The participants were Japanese-English bilingual "returnee"…

We examined the joint role of parental word reading skills and conventional home literacy environment measures among 320 Filipino low- to middle-income families in Cebu City, Philippines with children aged 5-8 years old. A ranking of parent-reported ratings of their frequency of engaging in home literacy activities and adult literacy practices…

The gestures children produce predict the early stages of spoken language development. Here we ask whether gesture is a global predictor of language learning, or whether particular gestures predict particular language outcomes. We observed 52 children interacting with their caregivers at home, and found that gesture use at 18 months selectively…