A Pediatrics study found that children ages 18-to 24-months who engaged in conversation and were spoken to by adults benefited during their school-age years with better language and cognition skills.

The study, “Language Experience in the Second Year of Life and Language Outcomes in Late Childhood,” will be published in the October 2018 issue of Pediatrics (published online Sept. 10). Conversational turn-taking between the ages of 18-24 months accounted for 14% to 27% of the higher performance in IQ, verbal comprehension, and receptive and expressive vocabulary scores, after controlling for socioeconomic factors.

Researchers audio-recorded the adult words and adult-child conversations of 146 infants and toddlers for 1 day each month for 6 months. Using LENA technology and software, they followed up by evaluating the children with language and cognitive testing at ages 9 through 14 years.

The authors conclude that there is a need for early intervention programs that support parents to create the best early language environment for children.