Does a monthly, unconditional cash transfer given to mothers residing in poverty for 1 year have a causal impact on child-directed speech? The first paper from my postdoctoral work with @Gen_Pov asks this question, out now in Child Development!

RT @Fede_Bulgarelli: New paper out in Developmental Science with @bergelsonlab! We asked whether the acoustic properties of language input….

We find wide variability in child-directed speech within this sample and no evidence of a statistically significant impact of the cash gift. Ongoing work on Baby's First Years is investigating the impact of the continued cash gift on child development over time.

Leveraging the Baby’s First Years randomized controlled trial, we assess the causal impact of monthly, unconditional cash transfers on child-directed speech (using LENA during 10-min play sessions) in a large sample of US mothers with low income and their 1-year-olds (N=563).

RT @JessaStegall: I'm SO excited for this - @DukePsychNeuro's Anti-Racism Community won money to host a ✨FREE✨ and in-person Diversity Days….

RT @Gen_Pov: Taking time this summer to learn & reflect w/ @DukeSanford @dukechildpol scholars on #poverty in the U.S. & children (ChildPov….

RT @bergelsonlab: We’d like to break our recent Twitter hiatus to shout from the rooftops how proud we are of ~Dr.~ @ee_campbell who kicked….

RT @DukePsychNeuro: Have you ever wondered why people gossip? Tune in and listen to @DukeU Postdoctoral Associate Meltem Yucel (@DrMeltemYu….

RT @EricNeumannPsy: 608 PhD students were studied during their first year of grad school. Those from lower SES backgrounds felt less integ….

You’ll also hear about the impacts on breastfeeding (@laurarstil), children’s health and sleep (@Jess_Sperber), and language and socioemotional development (@EmmaRoseHart ). We’re looking forward to discussing our work, so please stop by!.

Does a poverty reduction RCT impact mothers’ child-directed speech? Come hear about my postdoctoral work investigating this question at a symposium about Baby’s First Years tomorrow 3/24 at 8:30am! #SRCD23.

RT @EmmaRoseHart: New paper out testing the tried-and-true theory that stress drives SES differences in parent behaviors. We found null ass….

RT @Fede_Bulgarelli: The Buffalo Early Learning Lab is recruiting a lab manager to start Summer 2023. Please reach out with any questions a….

Babies hear more talk from caregivers once they begin talking themselves -- read about my recent research on @ChildFamilyBlog!

RT @DukeBrain: Girls have bigger vocabularies than boys starting ~18 mo.'s, but their larger lexicons aren’t bc mom + dad talk more to thei….

Also see DukeToday’s write-up of the paper!

Instead, we found that infants’ language input changed once they themselves began talking. That is, caregivers talk more to talkers, regardless of child gender.

We replicated prior work finding that girls have bigger vocabularies than boys in infancy, but we didn’t find evidence that their language input was any different than boys’.

We wanted to disentangle the effects of child gender, age, and language abilities on children’s early language input, so we dug into a longitudinal corpus of recordings from English-learning American children (SEEDLingS; N=44).

Research finds that girls tend to have better early language skills, and a lower risk of language deficits/disorders, than boys. But the literature is mixed re: input differences to girls vs. boys, often limited in its sampling, and often confounds gender/age/language ability.