Socioeconomic Status Affects Early Vocabulary Development

In the September and October 2003 edition of Child Development the article “The Specificity of Environmental Influence: Socioeconomic Status Affects Early Vocabulary Development Via Maternal Speech” was published. The purpose of this study was to answer the research question “Can SES-related differences in children’s vocabulary development be explained as the result of SES-related differences in their language-learning experiences?” Hoff later explains in the Introduction how there is evidence that supports the hypothesis that different socioeconomic variables, such as maternal speech, can impact language and vocabulary development in children. The author explicitly states this when she says, “A large body of circumstantial evidence supports this mediation hypothesis. Mothers’ talk to children differs as a function of SES (Hoff et al., 2002), and properties of mothers’ talk to children account for individual differences in the rate of children’s vocabulary development” (pg. 1369). The author found this conclusion through four sub-claims: (1) there is a relation between SES and child vocabulary, (2) there is a relation between SES and maternal speech, (3) there is a relation between SES-related maternal speech and child …show more content…
However, this study does not validate that maternal speech is the only determiner in child language development. Overall factors of high-SES families, such as nutrition, health, and stimulation may also play a big role in language development along with maternal speech. With all of these environmental factors of SES, including maternal speech, put into consideration, a young child needs the most nurturing environment for early vocabulary development. The higher the SES of a child’s family, the greater the language development and vocabulary the child