Having an elder brother is associated with slower language development

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yong321
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Having an elder brother is associated with slower language development

Postby yong321 » Wed Sep 18, 2019 3:45 am

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 124522.htm

"Children who have an elder brother had on average a two-month delay in language development compared with children with an elder sister."

I can't read the research article linked to at the bottom of this news. But the conclusion is interesting.

[Update]
I was able to read the full research article at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 7619861436

The last paragraph is:
"To conclude, the current study found that having an older sister was associated with higher language scores than having an older brother. Children who had an older sister scored similarly to children with no older sibling, whereas children who had an older brother scored significantly lower. We found no evidence that a larger age gap between siblings was beneficial for the language development of the younger child."

The research also tried to find any effect of age-gap. The article has these words in the middle of the Discussion section:
"We additionally hypothesized that the age gap between siblings would be positively correlated with language scores. This hypothesis was not supported. If anything, we found a trend in the opposite direction: The more closely spaced the siblings were, the higher the language scores of the target child. ... An even larger study would be necessary to determine whether or not there is a genuine negative age-gap effect."
Last edited by yong321 on Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ryanheise
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Re: Having an elder brother is associated with slower language development

Postby ryanheise » Wed Sep 18, 2019 5:32 pm

As a second born who's always felt linguistically challenged and who ALSO happens to have an older brother, I just want to say to my brother in case he's reading "I don't blame you!!" ;-)

I'd still like to see what their methodology was and what the intuitions were behind their hypotheses if they ever come out with a paper.

My guess is that this may have something to do with the superior language skills of girls, discussed in this article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -language/

The idea being that if I had an older sister, I might encounter more advanced language by communicating with her daily. And in the absence of any older sibling at all, such daily interactions would just defer to my parents who would of course be sharing more advanced language with me.
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Re: Having an elder brother is associated with slower language development

Postby Speakeasy » Wed Sep 18, 2019 5:36 pm

As I have absolutely no training in the field, it is impossible for me to comment on the findings of this latest study. Still, I am not without life experience and it seems to me that measuring/observing/declaring a “two-month delay” in linguistic skills is cutting things pretty finely! Nevertheless, this study caused me to recall the case of two Japanese-Canadian friends of mine …

The boys grew up in Vancouver, B.C. The elder brother learned to speak Japanese at home from their mother but, because their father was often absent for extended periods, rarely had an opportunity to speak his “mother tongue” (quite literally, in this case) with his male parent. Added to the mix were socio-cultural issues (not much father-son communication, beyond the stern looks, that is). In his twenties, with a view to reconnecting to his cultural roots, the elder brother moved to Japan, where he was frequently (and openly) humiliated by his co-workers for his out-dated and feminized vocabulary, his lack of finesse in social situations (he had not picked up the social code at home), and for his having been westernized (a common complaint directed at ex-pats). Eventually, as he described his experience, the situation became “less brutal” and he did, indeed, reconnect with his roots and, satisfied with his progress (and recognizing that, owing to his ex-pat-ness, his prospects were limited), he returned to Vancouver.

The younger brother had the same contact with their parents: his mother spoke Japanese to him in the home, but he had little contact with his father owing to the latter’s extended absences. In sharp contrast to his elder sibling, he never picked up more than a few words of Japanese (at the time I was close to the brothers, I had been studying Japanese and I had a more expansive vocabulary and a better understanding of the basic structure of the language than he did). The elder brother explained to me that his sibling simply refused to speak Japanese in the home (apparently, the younger brother, infuriated by his mother’s attempts at teaching him Japanese, would throw temper tantrums and demand that she speak English to him which, following years of failed attempts, she eventually did). Everybody at school spoke English, everybody in the playground spoke English, everybody outside on the street spoke English, everybody on television spoke English and … his older brother yielded to his demands and spoke only English to him.

We never discussed whether or not there was a “delay” in the younger brother’s ability to speak English. However, later in life, when I met them, the younger brother (who seemed to have been blessed of an IQ in the "genius" range) was the more articulate of the two.

EDITED:
Typos, of course.
Tinkering, as usual.
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