Children With An Older Brother Have Poorer Language Skills Than Those With A Big Sister

By Matthew Warren The role of birth order in shaping who we are has been a matter of some debate in psychology. Recent research has cast doubt on the idea that an individual’s position in relation to their siblings influences their personality, for instance. But there may be other domains where birth order is still important: in particular, researchers have found that children with a greater number of older siblings seem to have worse verbal skills. However, a new study published in Psychological Science has found that the situation is a bit more complicated than that.  Young children with an older sibling do indeed perform worse on language measures, the authors find — but only if that sibling is a brother. Parents only have a limited amount of time and attention they can split between their children, so the more siblings a child has, the less input they will personally receive from their parents. As parents play an important role in their child’s language development, this could explain why those with a greater number of older siblings have worse language skills. Naomi Havron at PSL Université and colleagues were interested in how this effect is influenced by the age and sex of an older sibling. There may be less of a negative impact if there is a bigger age gap between siblings, or if the older sibling is a girl, the researchers reasoned. A much older sibling will have better verbal skills, so could themselves become a useful source for younger children to learn ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Developmental Gender Language Source Type: blogs