Early, typical, and late talkers: an exploratory study on predictors of language development in the first two years of life

Background: The consensus in scientific literature is that each child undergoes a unique linguistic development path, albeit with shared developmental stages. Some children excel or lag behind their peers in language skills. Consequently, a key challenge in language acquisition research is pinpointing factors influencing individual differences in language development. Methods: We observed children longitudinally from 3 to 24 months of life to explore early predictors of vocabulary size. Based on the productive vocabulary size of children at 24 months, 30 children met our sample selection criteria: 10 late talkers and 10 early talkers, and we compared them with 10 typical talkers. We evaluated interactive behaviors at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, considering vocal production, gaze at mother’s face, and gestural production during mother-child interactions, and we considered mothers’ report of children’s actions and gestures and receptive-vocabulary size at 15 and 18 months. Results: Results indicated early precursors of language outcome at 24 months identifiable as early as 3 months in vocal productions, 6 months for gaze at mother’s face and 12 months for gestural productions. Conclusions: Our research highlights both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, identifying the early indicators of belonging to the group of late or early talkers underscores the significant role of this developmental period for future studies. On a practical note, our findings emphasize the crucial need for early investigations to identify predictors of vocabulary development before the typical age at which lexical delay is identified.