The role of mothers' speech for children's education beyond the early years

Brown, A., Caspi, A., Fisher, H. L., Moffitt, T. E., Wertz, J. and von Stumm, S. (2026) The role of mothers' speech for children's education beyond the early years. Child Development. 0009-3920.

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Abstract:

We tested the extent to which mothers’ speech contributes to the transmission of family background inequality in education. In 894 families (93.1% White), representative of the full range of Britain’s socioeconomic conditions, we quantified mothers’ vocabulary sophistication, lexical diversity, and grammatical complexity from 10-minute-long audio-recorded interviews. Mothers’ vocabulary sophistication significantly predicted children’s (49% males) cognition, literacy, and educational achievement from ages 5 through 12 years, accounting for 2% to 5% of the variance. After adjusting for mothers’ education and household income, these effects reduced to 1% and 2% or became non-significant. Our findings suggest vocabulary sophistication contributes only modestly to the transmission of family background inequality in education.

Uncontrolled Keywords:

/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/reduced_inequalities

Creators:

Brown, A., Caspi, A., Fisher, H. L., Moffitt, T. E., Wertz, J. and von Stumm, S.

Date:

2 June 2026

Date Type:

Publication

Journal or Publication Title:

Child Development

Number of Pages:

Language:

English

ISSN:

0009-3920

Status:

Published / Disseminated

Refereed:

Yes