More reading (aloud), fewer tablets

Reading a story every evening, banning the tablet, or, above all, talking to your child a lot? Parents do everything they can to support their children’s language development. Caroline Junge is investigating how the environment and genes of very young children influence language development. Her research focuses on interdisciplinarity and building connections: “My expertise lies in bringing people together. And asking the right questions.”

What is your research about?

“I’m looking at all the factors that influence language development in children. We know that early differences are very important for well-being and academic performance. But where exactly do these differences come from? It may be because children already have an increased (genetic) risk of language difficulties, or because of how the child develops. But it may also be linked to how much parents engage with language, for example, by reading (aloud) to their children. How these factors interact with one another is something I’m keen to explore in more depth.”

So, what factors contribute to a child’s language development?

“In all sorts of different projects, we focus on small details, to identify all the factors that contribute to children’s language development. Once we have identified various factors, we hope to piece them all together. One such factor, for example, is the parent: how well parents master language is a fairly reliable predictor of a child’s language ability. This is because parents not only pass on a predisposition for language to their child, but also the environment in which children grow up. We see that, particularly at a young age – around 5 years old – the environment plays a greater role in language development than we had expected, whilst parents’ language skills actually play a smaller role.”

To examine the influence of genes and the environment in greater depth, various indicators are important. A parent’s vocabulary is an indicator of a child’s genes. A parent’s reading behaviour and, conversely, screen use within the family - such as smartphones or tablets - are important environmental factors. We found a slight correlation between a parent’s vocabulary and a child’s language ability. However, as soon as we took environmental factors into account – namely, how much the parent reads aloud and the extent of screen use – the parent’s vocabulary was no longer a predictive factor. In short, even if parents have a limited vocabulary, if they read aloud frequently and make little use of screens, this can help the child’s language skills to develop more strongly.

Even if parents have a limited vocabulary, if they read aloud frequently and make little use of screens, this can help the child’s language skills to develop more strongly.

Another project focuses on early brain development. Thanks to data from the long-term YOUth study, we have analysed 3D ultrasound scans of foetuses during pregnancy at two different stages: before and after they are able to hear language. Ultrasound scans do not provide highly detailed information about the brain, but they do reveal the sizes of certain parts of the brain. For example, we know that the cerebellum (the ‘little brain’) plays a role in language processing.

We are also interested in the length of the corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres. Does this say anything about future language ability? We are combining the data from the YOUth study with new data: we followed these children between the ages of three and seven. Parents of the very youngest children were asked which words their child understood or was already saying. At older ages, the children were given different tests. The next step is to identify the link between the size of the brain, the cerebellum, and the corpus callosum before birth and language development later in life. Together with my PhD student Nina Wyman, I will be further investigating this relationship over the coming year.”

Why is interdisciplinary research so important?

“Interdisciplinary research allows you to ask much more complex questions. All sorts of complex cognitive functions come together in humans, and to really understand that properly, you need to go beyond the boundaries of individual disciplines. Together with researchers from the humanities and social sciences, such as Anika van der Klis and Aoju Chen, we are trying to find out more about early language development. When it comes to early brain development, we particularly need social scientists who specialise in echo processing, such as Sonja de Zwarte and Gabi van Iersel. We also need genuine statistics experts, such as Rebecca Kuiper. At Dynamics of Youth, we have always worked across disciplinary boundaries. At Utrecht Brain, I hope to demonstrate just how valuable it is to bring people together.”