Your toddler's vocabulary at age TWO can predict their success in later life

Early speech acquisition and large vocabulary are strongly correlated with high IQ so these results are another confirmation of the wide-ranging effects of IQ, and its status as just one feature of biological good functioning

Your child's vocabulary at age two could reveal their future success, researchers have claimed.

They found children with better academic and behavioural functioning when they started kindergarten often had better educational and societal opportunities as they grew up.

They say children entering kindergarten with higher reading and math achievements are more likely to go to college, own homes, be married, and live in higher-income neighbourhoods as adults.

Gaps in oral vocabulary were evident between specific groups of children as young as age 2.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Pennsylvania State University, the University of California, Irvine, and Columbia University, who analysed nationally representative data for 8,650 children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, and appears in the journal Child Development.

Two-year-olds' vocabularies were measured via a parent survey, and their academic achievement in kindergarten was gauged via individually administered measures of reading and math.

Kindergarten teachers independently rated the children's behavioural self-regulation and frequency of acting out or anxious behaviour.

Researchers took into account a wide range of background characteristics (such as sociodemographics) and experiences (such as parenting quality) to more fully isolate the role of vocabulary growth.

They looked at whether 2-year-olds with larger oral vocabularies achieved more academically and functioned at more optimal levels behaviourally when they later entered kindergarten.

Gaps in oral vocabulary were evident between specific groups of children as young as age 2, with children from higher-income families, females, and those experiencing higher-quality parenting having larger oral vocabularies than their peers.

Children born with very low birthweight or from households where the mother had health problems had smaller oral vocabularies.

When the researchers examined the children three years later, they found that children who had a larger oral vocabulary at age 2 were better prepared academically and behaviourally for kindergarten, with greater reading and maths achievement, better behavioural self-regulation, and fewer acting out or anxiety-related problem behaviours.

This oral vocabulary advantage could not be explained by many other factors, including the children's own general cognitive and behavioural functioning and the families' socioeconomic resources.

'Our findings provide compelling evidence for oral vocabulary's theorized importance as a multifaceted contributor to children's early development,' said Paul Morgan, associate professor of education at the Pennsylvania State University, who led the study.

Adds George Farkas, professor of education at the University of California, Irvine, who coauthored the study: 'These oral vocabulary gaps emerge as early as 2 years. 'Early interventions that effectively increase the size of children's oral vocabulary may help at-risk 2-year-olds subsequently enter kindergarten classrooms better prepared academically and behaviourally. 'Interventions may need to be targeted to 2-year-olds being raised in disadvantaged home environments.'

Farkas is an opinionated idiot.  These differences are inborn so no "intervention" is likely to have any lasting effect -- as has repeatedly been shown.  Note the abject failure of "Head Start", for instance.  Farkas neither presents any evidence for his assertions nor is interested in any -- JR

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