Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry
Meredith L. Rowe* and
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Children from low–socioeconomic status (SES) families,
on average, arrive at school with smaller vocabularies than
children from high-SES families. In an effort to identify precursors
to, and possible remedies for, this inequality, we videotaped
50 children from families with a range of different SES interacting
with parents at 14 months and assessed their vocabulary skills
at 54 months. We found that children from high-SES families
frequently used gesture to communicate at 14 months, a relation
that was explained by parent gesture use (with speech controlled).
In turn, the fact that children from high-SES families have
large vocabularies at 54 months was explained by children's
gesture use at 14 months. Thus, differences in early gesture
help to explain the disparities in vocabulary that children
bring with them to school.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rowemer{at}uchicago.edu
