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International Journal of Behavioral Development, Vol. 32, No. 2,
145-151 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0165025407087213
© 2008 International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development
Correlates of early language development in Chinese children
Yiwen Zhang
Shanghai Xin Hua Hospital Children's Health Care Department, China
Xingming Jin
Shanghai Xin Hua Hospital Children's Health Care Department, China
Xiaoming Shen
Shanghai Xin Hua Hospital Children's Health Care Department, China
Jinming Zhang
Shanghai Xin Hua Hospital Children's Health Care Department, China
Erika Hoff
Florida Atlantic University, USA, ehoff{at}fau.edu
Caregivers of 608 (331 boys and 277 girls) children in Shanghai, China reported on their children's language development and on the language teaching practices used in the home. The children were between 24 and 47 months old. The relation of age-corrected language level to paternal education, child gender, and teaching practice use was examined. Children of more educated fathers were more advanced in language development than children of less educated fathers. Girls were more advanced than boys. Some language teaching practices were positively related to language development but one, the practice of eliciting imitation from children, was negatively related to language development. Vocabulary development showed a greater number of significant relations to environmental variables than did grammatical development. These results suggest the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural generalizability of previous findings from studies of North American samples with respect to correlates of children's early language development.
Key Words: input • language • sex differences • socioeconomic status
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