What is it about?

Children learn language by interacting with others, and by being exposed to language as spoken by others (i.e., language input). In children’s first years, parents are the most important providers of language input. In this systematic review, we aimed to uncover what is known about parental language input and its relationship with language acquisition in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). These children experience great difficulties with language learning and may not benefit from language input in the same way as their typically developing peers. Also, certain types of parental language input and parent-child interaction may be more helpful for them than others. Our systematic literature review analyzed 67 previously published articles on parental language input in DLD during early childhood (0 – 6 years). We categorized parental language input into three aspects based on Rowe and Snow’s (2020) classification: (1) interactive (e.g., back-and-forth conversations), (2) linguistic (e.g., the way parents use words and sentences), and (3) conceptual (e.g., the meaning and complexity of what is said).

Why is it important?

The results highlight the importance of parent’s responsiveness (e.g., following their child’s interests, expanding on their child’s speech, and repeating what they say), as well as the child’s own involvement in parent-child interaction, for successful language learning. However, simply hearing more words did not seem to directly relate to language skills, although more research is needed in the context of DLD. The findings also signal gaps in current knowledge and provide suggestions for future research on the relationships between parental language input and language development in children with DLD.