Global study finds socioeconomics don't impact baby speech development; key factors are age, maturity, parental interaction
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Bergelson's research challenges assumptions that socio-economic status impacts child language development, finding no effects in a large global study.
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Comprehension of language in babies begins as early as 6 months, with significant improvement around a child's first birthday.
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The study analyzed audio recordings from 1,001 children across 12 countries and 43 languages, providing a diverse dataset.
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Key predictors of language development were age, clinical factors like prematurity, and amount of speech children hear from adults.
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The study found parental education, gender, and multilingualism were not predictive of speech production in children ages 2-4 years.