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hurleymn t1_iz1j8zq wrote

Reply to comment by Jebediah_Johnson in Baby girls babble their way to bigger vocabularies sooner than baby boys, but it’s not because parents talk to them more, instead parents appear to talk more to young children who themselves are already talking, regardless of their gende by giuliomagnifico

But the article explicitly dispels the myth that girls talk more than boys, and also mentions that girls only start talking about one month earlier than boys.

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eazyirl t1_iz1nyie wrote

One month is a massive massive difference when it comes to early childhood development. Cannot be overstated how huge of a difference that is.

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Chetkica t1_iz2lqkk wrote

Ill fix it for ya:

  1. baby girls have bigger vocabularies. They dont know why.

  2. parents talk more to talkative children, regardless of gebder

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Shishire t1_iz3uk1r wrote

Adding some minor sub points to further clarify:

  1. Both baby girls and baby boys speak about the same amount on average

  2. The distribution of talkative-to-non-talkative for babies appears to be generally independent of gender, i.e., there are approximately as many very talkative boys as there are very talkative girls, and approximately as many not very talkative boys as there are not very talkative girls.

As a further clarifying side note, for anyone else who stumbles upon this, the girls have, on average, larger vocabularies, which means they know a larger number of words, but they don't, again on average, speak a larger number of times per day.

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Jebediah_Johnson t1_iz1kd62 wrote

Meaning girls have parents talking with them about a month sooner giving them a leg up on vocabulary.

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hepazepie t1_iz1vz7i wrote

Yeah but they get sooner/more talked to because of their vocabulary. Chicken or egg?

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zoinkability t1_iz2dux9 wrote

Perhaps more a “virtuous cycle” — a little bit earlier start of speech means a bit more being spoken to, means more rapid speech acquisition, means yet more being spoken to, etc. Seems absolutely plausible that what seems like a small difference in when speech starts could end up causing a larger vocabulary difference.

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