A growing body of research has found that talking to young children is positively associated with language outcomes. However, there is tremendous heterogeneity in the design of these studies, which could potentially affect the strength and reliability of this association. The present meta-analysis, comprising 4760 participants across 71 studies, goes beyond prior research by including: 1) more recent studies, 2) non-English-speaking populations, 3) more fine-grained categorization of measures of input, 4) additional moderators, and 5) a multilevel model design allowing us to consider multiple effect sizes per study. We find a moderate association between input and outcomes (R2=0.04-0.07) across four input measures, with some evidence of publication bias. We find no differences in effect size across any of the input measures. Child age and study duration moderated some effects of input. Our findings suggest that language input-outcome associations remain robust but modest across a multitude of contexts and measures.

The ongoing nutrition transition in lower- and middle-income countries (LMIC) in South East Asia may have a positive impact on protein nutrition. This study assessed the diversity of plant and animal protein food sources in relation to essential amino acid (EAA) adequacy in a population-based sample (N 1665) in Indonesia. Dietary intakes from in-person 24 h recalls provided data on energy and protein intakes (in g/d) from plants (grains, legumes), meat, poultry and fish, and eggs and dairy. Protein diversity scores were based on the number of protein food sources over 24 h. EAA scores were the ratio of amino acid intakes to recommended values. Protein diversity and EAA scores were then compared across multiple socio-demographic indices. Analysis of variance and χ2 tests were used to test for differences among groups. Energy intakes were 1678 kcal/d for men and 1435 kcal/d for women. Average protein intakes (and prevalence of inadequacy) were 59⋅4 g/d (41⋅7 %) for men and 51⋅5 g/d (51⋅1 %) for women. In regression analyses, higher protein diversity scores were associated with higher protein intakes, more animal protein and less plant protein and with higher EAA scores. Lower protein diversity scores were associated with lower intakes of lysine, leucine and valine relative to requirements, as well as with lower EAA, rural settings, less wealth and less modernisation. Greater diversity of animal protein food sources, observed among groups of higher socio-economic status, was linked to better amino acid adequacy and protein nutrition.

First-generation refugee children often experience pre- and post-migration adversity and display high levels of mental health/wellbeing difficulties, but to date, research has not examined the impact of such factors on refugee children's L2 acquisition. Accordingly, this study examined the influence of externalizing and internalizing problem behaviours (wellbeing), time in refugee camps and low socioeconomic status (SES) (adversity) on the English-L2 abilities of 117 Syrian refugee children (7–14 years) in their third year of residency in Canada. Wellbeing difficulties and adversity factors accounted for variance on L2 vocabulary, morphosyntax, listening comprehension and narrative production tasks, beyond the variance accounted for by age of L2 acquisition and length of L2 exposure. Specifically, externalizing problem behaviours, time in refugee camp, maternal education and maternal employment predicted variance in L2 abilities. It is concluded that refugee children could have influences on their L2 acquisition that are different from those of bilinguals with other backgrounds.

The study adopts a naturalistic perspective, looking at the relationship between socio-economic status (SES), activities and variation sets in child-directed speech (CDS) to Spanish-speaking Argentinian toddlers. It aims to determine the effect of SES and type of activity on the proportion of words and utterances in variation sets and on the pragmatic function they serve in interaction. Thirty two children (mean: 14.3 months) and their families were audio-recorded for four hours and the middle two hours were analyzed using CLAN. We developed an automatic algorithm for variation sets extraction that compares noun, verb and adjective lexemes in successive utterances. Mixed-effects beta regression showed SES and activity type effects on the proportion of variation sets and on the pragmatic function served by variation sets. Findings revealed that the contextual variables considered impact on how interlocutors organize the information to young children at the local level of natural at home interactions.

Using a meta-analytic approach, we evaluate the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and children's experiences measured with the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system. Our final analysis included 22 independent samples, representing data from 1583 children. A model controlling for LENATM measures, age and publication type revealed an effect size of rz= .186, indicating a small effect of SES on children's language experiences. The type of LENA metric measured emerged as a significant moderator, indicating stronger effects for adult word counts than child vocalization counts. These results provide important evidence for the strength of association between SES and children's everyday language experiences as measured with an unobtrusive recording analyzed automatically in a standardized fashion.

Parental socioeconomic status (SES) strongly influences children's language abilities but less is known about its influence on pragmatic abilities (e.g., inferring intentions from relevance implicatures). Moreover, by focussing on SES, the role of socio-cognitive engagement (e.g., joint parent-child interactions) has been overlooked.

We tested four- and six-year-old children (n = 92) with a communication task, a questionnaire assessed parents’ SES and socio-cognitive engagement.

Socio-cognitive engagement predicted children's communication abilities while the parental educational background and income did not. This emphasizes the notion that communication is a highly socio-cognitive task, one which children perform the better the more frequently they engage in socio-cognitive interactions.

The aim of this study was to determine whether the living conditions of school children affects their body structure and muscular strength. Data were taken from 400 girls and 341 boys aged 7–15 years attending nine primary schools in Warsaw in 1997. A questionnaire was completed, anthropological measurements made and two muscular strength tests conducted. The questionnaire asked questions on the children’s level of education, their parents’ professions and monthly incomes, the number of persons in the family and the number of rooms in the family’s apartment/home. Body height, body weight, chest and arm circumferences, grip strength and vertical jump height were measured and used to calculate body mass index, Marty’s Index and the Sargent Vertical Jump Index. Statistical tests included Student’s t-test, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and multiple regression analysis. Body height, chest circumference, Sargent Vertical Jump Index and grip strength were significantly greater in the boys than the girls. Two factors, namely ‘socioeconomic status’ (F1) and ‘family size’ (F2), describing living conditions, were isolated after PCA. Boys from bigger families (F2) were shorter, with lower weights and BMIs, smaller chest and arm circumferences and greater grip strengths than those from smaller families, whereas girls from families of lower socioeconomic status (F1) weighed less and had greater BMIs and arm circumferences than those from higher socioeconomic status families. The results suggest that boys seem to be more ‘ecosensitive’ than girls.

We recently reported an association of offspring educational attainment with polygenic risk scores (PRS) computed on parent’s non-transmitted alleles for educational attainment using the second GWAS meta-analysis article on educational attainment published by the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium. Here we test the replication of these findings using a more powerful PRS from the third GWAS meta-analysis article by the Consortium. Each of the key findings of our previous paper is replicated using this improved PRS (N = 2335 adolescent twins and their genotyped parents). The association of children’s attainment with their own PRS increased substantially with the standardized effect size, moving from β = 0.134, 95% CI = 0.079, 0.188 for EA2, to β = 0.223, 95% CI = 0.169, 0.278, p < .001, for EA3. Parent’s PRS again predicted the socioeconomic status (SES) they provided to their offspring and increased from β = 0.201, 95% CI = 0.147, 0.256 to β = 0.286, 95% CI = 0.239, 0.333. Importantly, the PRS for alleles not transmitted to their offspring — therefore acting via the parenting environment — was increased in effect size from β = 0.058, 95% CI = 0.003, 0.114 to β = 0.067, 95% CI = 0.012, 0.122, p = .016. As previously found, this non-transmitted genetic effect was fully accounted for by parental SES. The findings reinforce the conclusion that genetic effects of parenting are substantial, explain approximately one-third the magnitude of an individual’s own genetic inheritance and are mediated by parental socioeconomic competence.

The current study investigates how second-language (L2) proficiency contributes to cognitive control differences among three groups of unbalanced Chinese–English bilinguals matched for socioeconomic status (SES), intelligence (IQ), education, age, culture, and L1 background. A Flanker task and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) were administered to measure conflict monitoring, inhibition, and mental set shifting. ANOVA analyses revealed faster performance for the High-L2 Group compared to the Low-L2 Group in the congruent, neutral, and incongruent conditions of the Flanker task. However, there were no group differences on the WCST. Multiple step-wise regression analyses showed that L2 proficiency was a predictor for the Flanker task performance in all three conditions, SES in the neutral and the incongruent condition, and IQ in the congruent condition. These results suggest that L2 proficiency, along with SES and IQ, contribute significantly to cognitive control differences in conflict monitoring among young-adult bilinguals.

Socio-economic status (SES) impacts the amount and type of input children hear in ways that have developmental consequences. Here, we examine the effect of SES on the use of variation sets (successive utterances with partial self-repetitions) in child-directed speech (CDS). Variation sets have been found to facilitate language learning, but have been studied only in higher-SES groups. Here, we examine their use in naturalistic speech in two languages (Hebrew and English) for both low- and high-SES caregivers. We find that variation sets are more frequent in the input of high-SES caregivers in both languages, indicating that SES also impacts structural properties of CDS.

Genotype by environment interaction in behavioral traits may be assessed by estimating the proportion of variance that is explained by genetic and environmental influences conditional on a measured moderating variable, such as a known environmental exposure. Behavioral traits of interest are often measured by questionnaires and analyzed as sum scores on the items. However, statistical results on genotype by environment interaction based on sum scores can be biased due to the properties of a scale. This article presents a method that makes it possible to analyze the actually observed (phenotypic) item data rather than a sum score by simultaneously estimating the genetic model and an item response theory (IRT) model. In the proposed model, the estimation of genotype by environment interaction is based on an alternative parametrization that is uniquely identified and therefore to be preferred over standard parametrizations. A simulation study shows good performance of our method compared to analyzing sum scores in terms of bias. Next, we analyzed data of 2,110 12-year-old Dutch twin pairs on mathematical ability. Genetic models were evaluated and genetic and environmental variance components estimated as a function of a family's socio-economic status (SES). Results suggested that common environmental influences are less important in creating individual differences in mathematical ability in families with a high SES than in creating individual differences in mathematical ability in twin pairs with a low or average SES.

Our study examines the contribution of genetic and environmental factors (both shared and unique) to frailty, measured using the Rockwood Frailty Index (FI) in a sample of twins from the St Thomas’ UK Adult Twin Registry. The FI was based on 39 items of potential health deficit. Study participants were 3,375 volunteer adult twins (840 monozygotic and 802 dizygotic twin-pairs) 40.0–84.5 years old. First, we used structural equation modeling to estimate the relative contribution of genetics and of the shared and unique environment to variance in FI adjusted for age. In a second analysis, multiple linear regression was used to examine variance in FI as a function of father's occupational class (a component of shared environment and a measure of childhood socioeconomic status [SES]), adjusting for age, birth weight, marital status, and health behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity). Statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS® Version 22 software and Mx open source software. Findings showed that 45% (95% confidence intervals [CIs] 30–53%) of the inter-individual variation in FI was heritable and 52% (95% CIs 47–57%) was due to the individual's unique environment. Multiple linear regression also showed a small but statistically significant inverse association between father's occupational class and FI, mediated by one's own educational attainment and birth weight. Our results indicate that frailty is both genetically and environmentally determined. Thus, its prevention and management call for a multifaceted approach that includes addressing deleterious environmental factors, some of which, like childhood SES, may act across the life course.

This article investigated socio-economic status (SES), traumatic experience and mental health disorders among 103 refugees (52 males and 51 females) living in tropical and subtropical Australia. Specific focus was placed on comparing older refugees’ socio-economic status, traumatic experience and mental health disorders to younger refugees. The results showed that older refugees had lower levels of education, higher unemployment rates and poorer English skills and abilities compared to younger refugees. A greater percentage of older refugees perceived that they had received sufficient support from the broader community over younger refugees. Results also revealed that compared to younger participants, older participants aged over 50 years had significantly higher mean scores in trauma events (trauma exposure, loss event, loss of intrapersonal integrity, loss distress, loss of symbolic self, loss of home and interpersonal loss) and anxiety.

The performance of bilingual children and adults in Wales on Welsh and English vocabulary and grammar and on cognitive measures is re-analysed in relation to SES indicators of parental education and parental professions. Results are reported for 732 participants ranging across seven age groups from age 3 to over 60 and from four home language types, monolingual English, and bilinguals with only English at home, Welsh and English at home, or only Welsh at home. Results reveal extensive evidence of SES influence on performance, and of a complex relation of exposure in the home and SES level on performance, modulated by the age of the participant and whether one is considering the majority or minority language.

The relations of Gf (Standard Progressive Matrices Raven), Gc (verbal scale of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Version), personality dimensions (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Junior Version), and disruptive behavior (TDAH scale) with school achievement (measured by TDE test and PISA test) were investigated. Two samples of students (total N = 534) representing a broad range of socioeconomic status (SES) participated in this study. Path models were conducted. The results demonstrated that (1) in both samples no sex differences related to school achievement were found; (2) in the first sample, after controlling for age and SES differences, Gf and psychoticism predicted (.38 and −.13, respectively) school achievement (measured by TDE test); (3) in the second sample, after controlling for SES differences to which additional measures were administered, Gf and Gc positively predicted (.22 and .40, respectively) school achievement (measured by PISA test). In addition, psychoticism and disruptive behavior also predicted school performance (−.14 and −.28, respectively). Some theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The contribution of food, nutrition and physical activity to inequalities in health across Europe is largely unexplored. This paper summarizes cross sectional survey data on food patterns and nutrient intakes, and briefer data on physical activity, by various indicators of socio-economic status for countries across Europe. Factors are examined which underlie the outcome data seen. These include structural and material conditions and circumstances which contribute to excluding sociodemographic groups from participating in mainstream patterns of living. Trends in social and economic conditions, and their implications for nutritional and physical wellbeing are briefly outlined.