Differences between girls and boys in emerging language skills: Evidence from 10 language communities |
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| Authors: | Mårten Eriksson Peter B Marschik Tiia Tulviste Margareta Almgren Miguel Pérez Pereira Sonja Wehberg Ljubica Marjanovič‐Umek Frederique Gayraud Melita Kovacevic Carlos Gallego |
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| Institution: | 1. Faculty of Health and Occupational Studies, University of G?vle, Sweden;2. Institute of Physiology, Center for Physiological Medicine, Medical University of Graz, Austria;3. Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Estonia;4. University of the Basque Country, Vitoria‐Gasteiz, Spain;5. Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain;6. Institute of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark;7. Department of Psychology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia;8. Dynamics of Language, University of Lyon, France;9. Laboratory for Psycholinguistic Research, University of Zagreb, Croatia;10. Department of Psychology, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain |
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| Abstract: | The present study explored gender differences in emerging language skills in 13,783 European children from 10 non‐English language communities. It was based on a synthesis of published data assessed with adapted versions of the MacArthur‐Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) from age 0.08 to 2.06. The results showed that girls are slightly ahead of boys in early communicative gestures, in productive vocabulary, and in combining words. The difference increased with age. Boys were not found to be more variable than girls. Despite extensive variation in language skills between language communities, the difference between girls and boys remained. This suggests that the difference is caused by robust factors that do not change between language communities. |
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