Early Life Language Experiences: Speech Development and Educational Achievement

In this In Conversation podcast, Professor Sophie von Stumm, Anna Brown, and Emily Wood explore child language development with a specific focus on the influence of children’s early life language experiences on their speech development and educational achievement. Sophie, Anna, and Emily are part of the Hungry Mind Lab which studies the causes and consequences of individual differences in cognitive and social emotional development across the life course.

• Insight into what the Hungry Mind Lab is.
• Why the team choose to focus on language and language as a key skill for success in education.
• The relationship between mother’s everyday language usage and child’s outcomes and performance in school, and how this relates to mother’s socioeconomic status.
• Are inequalities due to how mothers speak to their children, or do they result from the economic, social, and political inequalities in which mothers raise their children?
• Should child development research be broadened to include other caregivers, for example fathers?
• Recommendations for parents, educationalists, policymakers and child and adolescent mental health professionals.