What Accounts for Socioeconomic Differences in Child-Directed Speech? The Role of Resource Scarcity

• In Event: 1-127 - Resources Talk: A Closer Look at SES, the Home Environment, and Language-Related Outcomes

Integrative Statement

Parents with fewer educational and economic resources (low socioeconomic-status, SES) tend to speak less to their children, with important consequences for children’s later language outcomes and, ultimately, their performance in school. Despite this well-established link, interventions that aim to increase CDS among lower-SES parents have not had long-term success. One problem may be that research has focused on individual-level explanations for CDS disparities, including parenting knowledge and effort, with little attention to structural factors that may contribute to these differences. Here, we investigate one possible structural explanation for SES differences in CDS: low-SES parents are more likely to experience resource scarcity. Past work demonstrates that individuals experiencing scarcity direct their attention to their resources, reducing working memory capacity and performance on cognitive tests (Shah, Shafir, & Mullainathan, 2015). Building on these findings, we ask whether low-SES parents may direct less speech to their children not because they lack parenting knowledge, but because managing the challenges imposed by poverty requires significant cognitive resources.

In a preliminary sample of a pre-registered study, we explore whether higher-SES caregivers—who by all accounts possess requisite parenting knowledge (Rowe, 2018)—will speak less to their children if they are first reminded of their recent experiences of resource scarcity. 25 caregivers (modal annual income>$200,000) and their 3-year old children (M=3.5[0.26] years) were recruited from a convenience sample. Caregivers were randomly assigned to reflect on 3-4 times in the last week they didn’t have enough of something (Scarcity Condition, n=13) or 3-4 things they did in the last week (Control Condition, n=12). Caregivers filled out a survey about these experiences while their child completed a distractor experiment. Next, the researcher left the room under the guise of retrieving a second survey (Figure 1). Dyads were left for ten minutes with an age-appropriate toy, selected to promote rich scaffolding speech. After the play session, the researcher returned and debriefed parents.

Play sessions were recorded and transcribed. We analyzed the quantity of caregivers’ and children’s word types (unique words) and tokens (total words). Caregivers in the Scarcity condition produced fewer word types (M=195.38[60.10]) than caregivers in the Control condition (M=262.17[33.91], t(19.21)=-3.45, p=0.003), and fewer word tokens (Scarcity M=528.00[231.40], Control M=768.83[98.11], t(16.45)=-3.43, p=0.003; Figure 2). Children did not differ in their production of word types or tokens (ps>0.10), suggesting that differences in caregivers’ speech between conditions could not be explained by the talkativeness of their children. Ongoing analyses are exploring possible qualitative differences in CDS.

These preliminary data suggest that higher-SES caregivers, who typically direct large quantities of speech to their children, speak less to their children when they are reminded of resource scarcity. Scarcity may shift caregivers’ attention away from their children, thereby reducing CDS, though future work is needed to address the exact mechanism by which scarcity influences parenting behavior. Our findings suggest that SES-differences in CDS could be partly explained by the cognitive effects of poverty. Thus, structural-level interventions that alleviate demands imposed by inadequate access to resources may be needed to boost CDS in low-SES households.

Authors

• Monica E. Ellwood-Lowe, University of California, Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Ruthe Foushee, UC Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mahesh Srinivasan, UC Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author