A 1500 WORD paper about child development (very simple)

The Number of Sblings and their Position in the Family in Terms of Birth Effects Language Development

Language development starts very early in human beings. Many researchers believe that a child starts learning, and recognizing speech and sound patterns in the womb of the mother. The first three years of a child’s life are very critical. In this period, children have great mental capacity, and they learn and adapt things very quickly. This is the best period in children’s life to expose them to language development. Researchers have been exploring this topic for many years and there is a huge amount of literature available on this topic. Over the years, researchers have identified many facts and factors which impact language development in children. In this paper, we will focus on the effect of birth order and the number of siblings on language development in children. We will now discuss four papers on this topic and analyze the significance of birth order and the number of siblings on the language development.

The first paper that we will discuss is titled “Variation in Vocabulary Development as a Function of Birth Order” and it is written by “Julian M. Pine” (Pine 1995). In this paper, the author tries to measure the effect of birth order difference in children’s early vocabulary development. The author argues that many researchers have studied this relationship in the past and adapted different approaches, but the results are inconsistent and inconclusive so far. Some researcher found significant difference in vocabulary size between first and later-born children, while some researched found no difference at all. According to the author, the reason for these differences is the problem in the methodology adopted by researchers. Researchers either choose small sample size which is insufficient to reach a conclusion, or they choose age-defined cross-sectional research which is also no appropriate.

The author proposes maternal diary methodology in an effort to overcome these problems. The author suggests that this methodology allows longitudinal approach and more powerful analysis. The author aims to prove the following hypotheses:

· Firstborns develop vocabulary sooner than their younger siblings

· Birth order does impact the vocabulary development in children

In order to prove the hypotheses, nine firstborns and their second-born siblings were selected. Their mothers were informed about the study and were told to keep a continuous diary record of their speech. These records were collected every month either by visiting child’s home or by a telephone call. There were slight variations but these were quite natural and impossible to rule out. So, overall record collection was quite consistent and valid. The results of this study prove the both hypotheses to some extent. The results show that there is a significant difference in the age at which firstborn and second-born learn first 50 words and other different measures of vocabulary. Firstborns reach these milestones earlier than second-born. However, no significant difference was found in overall language development in firstborns and later-born. Obviously, there are differences in environment and approach taken by the parents in case of later-born as compared to first-born, but its impact is only minor in language development of children and not huge. Also, the author suggests that a more representative sample would have been appropriate for more conclusive results. The results also show considerable birth-order differences in learning personal pronouns. This point highlights a much bigger role of observational learning in the vocabulary development of later-born children. Overall, this study shows that children have their own ways to learn language, and researchers might be overemphasizing the impact of child-directed speech and environmental factors in language development of children.

The second paper which we are going to discuss is titled “Siblings’ Direct and Indirect Contributions to Child Development” and it is written by “Gene H. Brody” (Brody 2004). In this paper the author discusses the direct and indirect part siblings play in the development of a child. The author shows how siblings affect a child in various ways. The author says researchers have now started putting a lot more focus on family issues related to sibling research. Researchers have recognized that sibling relationship is a very good indication of overall situation of the whole family. It shows whether a family is happy, or there are disputes in the family. All these family issues effect the overall development of children. The author believes that the impact of sibling relationships on children development can either be direct, indirect, or through differential treatment by parents. The author then analyzes each of these types of impact in detail.

Siblings effect the development of a child directly in many ways. Older siblings can prove to be very good teachers for their younger siblings. Older siblings can help in developing the cognitive and language skills of their younger siblings. As older siblings gain more experience of real world they also help their younger siblings along. They help them develop feelings for others and ability to connect with other people. Older siblings not only help their younger siblings but they also help themselves to become a better person. In a time of turmoil or family troubles, older siblings can help their younger siblings and hold them together. Obviously, older siblings can have a negative impact too on younger siblings. Aggression and bad behavior in older siblings can easily be transferred to younger siblings.

Siblings can have an indirect impact on children’s development. The experiences of parents and teachers with the older siblings influence their consequent behavior with the younger ones. If parents and teachers believe, that an older sibling is good in studies, and has good overall behavior then their attitude towards the younger siblings will be positive. On the other hand, if the older sibling has moral and drugs issues, then parents and teacher are likely to show skeptical behavior towards the younger siblings. In this way, siblings indirectly contribute to the children’s development and in turn a child develops a good or bad overall personality.

The third factor in siblings’ part in a child’s development is parental differential treatment. When children have siblings they closely observe the behavior and treatment of their parents with other siblings and automatically start comparing with themselves. Sometimes, parents treat siblings differently. If a child believes that his/her sibling is treated with more love then it could create an inferiority complex in that child and may affect his/her overall personality development. Sometimes this differential treatment is justified and children understand it and try to overcome the problems which are causing this differential treatment. But there are cases when children are treated unfairly and it causes serious issues in children’s development.

Finally, the author states that extensive work still needs to be done in various directions to achieve more insight into the effect of siblings’ contributions to children’s development.

The third paper that we will discuss is titled “Language Production and Comprehension: The Effect of Pre-School Aged Siblings on Toddlers Language Development” and it is written by “E. Malmeer” and “N. Assadi” (Malmeer & Assadi 2013). In this paper, the authors discuss the role of input by family members, and specifically the role of siblings, in the child’s language development. The authors focus on input provided by parents and siblings in the language development of toddlers up to 24 months age. The authors suggest that there is a significant difference between the quality and quantity of input provided by mothers and siblings. Since, mothers are more close to the children so they know better the current language level of their children. Siblings do not put much effort in the correction of their younger siblings. Even toddlers recognize that and they tend to respond better to communication in the presence of their mothers. In this study, the authors explore the effect of pre-school aged siblings on toddlers’ language development and compare it to the toddlers who don’t have a young sibling at home. To carry out this research, the authors chose 20 mothers and their toddlers from the age group of 18 – 24 months. 10 toddlers had a pre-school aged sibling and 10 didn’t. Families were asked to play with their children for 15 minutes and videotape the activities for a month at their homes. The results showed that presence and absence of sibling does have an impact on the child’s language development. The ability to produce sound of an only child was better on the average as compare to the child with sibling. On the other hand, comprehension ability of a child with sibling was better on the average as compared to only child. Hence, the authors concluded that the presence of pre-school age siblings may influence the language development in children and there is a clear difference in language production and comprehension as compared to children who don’t have siblings.

The final paper that we are going to discuss briefly (Westerlund & Lagerberg 2008) illustrates the impact of birth order and various other factors on the expressive vocabulary development in 18 months old children. We will focus on the effect of birth order. The authors state that linguistic abilities play a pivotal role in the whole life of a person and the best time to harness these skills is childhood. The authors examined the relationship between expressing vocabulary and reading habits as a function of birth order and various other factors. To successfully conduct this study, the authors asked questionnaires by mothers of 1091 children aged 17 – 19 months. The results showed that first-born children received more reading while children with siblings were read seldom. This ultimately resulted in better vocabulary and proved beneficial in the overall language development of children.

Here, we discussed four papers related to our topic. It is clear that all papers support the hypothesis that birth order and number of siblings have a significant effect on language development in children. But there are variations in the results. So, plenty of research is still required to reach more conclusive results.

References

Brody, G. H. (2004). Siblings' Direct and Indirect Contributions to Child Development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(3):124-126. 

Malmeer, E., Assadi, N. (2013). Language Production and Comprehension: The Effect of Pre-school Aged Siblings on Toddlers Language Development. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol 3, 1226-1231.

Pine, J. M. (1995). Variation in Vocabulary Development as a Function of Birth Order. Child Development, Vol. 66, pp. 272-281.