Do vocabulary skills in infancy predict reading and language skills in later childhood? Fiona Duff Gurpreet Reen, Kim Plunkett, Kate Nation

Language for Reading decoding × linguistic comprehension = reading comprehension nonphonological language Clarke et al. (2010) phonological language Hulme et al. (2012)

Language for Reading decoding × linguistic comprehension = reading comprehension nonphonological language Clarke et al. (2010) phonological language Hulme et al. (2012)

Research Questions If vocabulary predicts reading, vocabulary deficits signal risk of later reading difficulties – Is there a relationship between infant vocabulary and later literacy? – Could infant vocabulary deficits be used to identify children at risk of reading difficulties? Infant vocabulary School-age language/ literacy

Measuring Vocabulary ComprehensionProduction Oxford Communicative Development Inventory – Parental checklist of infants’ knowledge of 416 words – Standardised on 669 British infants (Hamilton et al., 2000)

Participants in Infancy Correlation between CDIs at t1 and t2 (n=100): Comp. =.75, Prod. =.70 (p <.001)

Participants at School-Age 300 children in ≈150 schools YearNAge (SD) Reception755;02 (0;04) Year 1556;00 (0;05) Year 2856;11 (0;05) Year 3668;00 (0;05) Year 4199;00 (0;03)

School-Age Test Battery Language – Receptive vocabulary (ROWPVT) – Expressive vocabulary (EOWPVT) – Phonological deletion (CTOPP Elision) Reading – Reading accuracy (DTWRP) – Reading comprehension (YARC) General cognitive ability – Nonverbal reasoning (BAS-II Matrices)

Participants at School-Age

School-Age Measures NMeanSDMinMax Receptive vocab Expressive vocab Phonological deletion Nonword reading Regular word reading Exception word reading Word reading accuracy Prose reading accuracy Reading comprehension Nonverbal IQ

Research Questions If vocabulary predicts reading, vocabulary deficits signal risk of later reading difficulties – Is there a relationship between infant vocabulary and later literacy? Infant vocabulary School-age language/ literacy

Infant vocabulary Comprehension Production Vocabulary Receptive Expressive Phonological awareness Reading accuracy NonwordsRegularsExceptions Reading comprehension Passage 1 Passage

Infant vocabulary Comprehension Production Vocabulary Receptive Expressive Phonological awareness Reading accuracy NonwordsRegularsExceptions Reading comprehension Passage 1 Passage

Infant vocabulary Comprehension Production Vocabulary Receptive Expressive Phonological awareness Reading accuracy NonwordsRegularsExceptions Reading comprehension Passage 1 Passage

Infant vocabulary Comprehension Production Vocabulary Receptive Expressive Phonological awareness.96 Reading accuracy NonwordsRegularsExceptions Reading comprehension Passage 1 Passage N = 300 Chi-square test of model fit: χ 2 (26) = p =.012 CF1 =.989; RMSEA =.049

Interim Summary Infant vocabulary is a significant predictor of school- age outcomes, accounting for: −4% variance in phoneme awareness −11% variance in reading accuracy −16% variance in vocabulary −18% variance in reading comprehension However, it is not a sufficient predictor What else can explain the remaining variance? −Family-risk: a better predictor of language outcomes at 4 years than ‘late talker’ status at 18 months (Bishop et al., 2012)

Family-Risk Family-risk (FR) questionnaire −First degree relative with a reading or language difficulty Reading Risk: No Reading Risk: Yes Totals Language Risk: No Language Risk: Yes 9514 Totals

Family risk Infant vocabulary Comprehension Production Vocabulary Receptive Expressive Phonological awareness.94 Reading accuracy NonwordsRegularsExceptions Reading comprehension Passage 1 Passage N = 300 Chi-square test of model fit: χ 2 (31) = 48.58, p =.023 CF1 =.989; RMSEA =.043

Conclusions and Implications Infant vocabulary is a significant but not sufficient predictor of later reading and language outcomes Family-risk explains additional variance in reading but not language outcomes The two predictors explain: −6% variance in phoneme awareness (cf. 4%) −16% variance in vocabulary (cf. 16%) −21% variance in reading accuracy (cf. 11%) −30% variance in reading comprehension (cf. 18%)

Conclusions and Implications Caution against using parent report of vocabulary as sole predictor of outcomes, especially for language: −Low stability of vocabulary from pre-24 months to school-age −Around 70% of 18-month-old ‘late talkers’ resolve (Bishop et al., 2012) Prediction of reading risk increased if consider infant vocabulary with family history Future research needs to address: −What FR is tapping −Whether prediction is improved when language is measured later on, more comprehensively, or more objectively

Acknowledgements Julia Dilnot, University of Cambridge Jane Ralph, University of Oxford Dr Suzy Styles, Technical University, Singapore Professor Dorothy Bishop, University of Oxford Professor Charles Hulme, UCL Schools, families and children