Infant Attention and Maternal Education Are Associated with Childhood Receptive Vocabulary Development

Receptive vocabulary development was examined in 313 children (151 girls; 78% White) as a function of infant attention and maternal education (66% of mothers held a college degree or higher). Attention was measured at 10 months using a dynamic puppet task and receptive vocabulary was measured at 3-, 4-, 6-, and 9 years of age using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The best-fitting multilevel growth model was a quadratic model as a function of age. Results indicated that both infant attention and maternal education were predictors of receptive vocabulary initial status, with no differences as a function of child sex. In contrast, infant attention, but not maternal education, predicted growth in receptive language skill, and boys demonstrated a faster rate of receptive language development in comparison to girls. These findings illustrate that even after accounting for child sex and maternal education, infant visual attention predicts children's receptive language development starting from the early preschool period into the elementary school years. These findings demonstrate the importance and nature of the role that infant attention and maternal education play with respect to childhood receptive language development.