FREE LECTURE: Children are not rockets

Australian children have been the focus of pioneering studies of early language development. These contemporary Australian population studies of language growth and patterns over time are producing a vastly different picture from the boutique studies of the early 1970’s that positioned language development so firmly as an outcome of maternal input. The findings from these population studies are reshaping what we believe about children’s language development and about who (or what) is in charge of it! From among the children who start talking early or late and from among the vast majority of typically developing children emerges a picture of a remarkably robust developmental endowment. Do genes matter? Does starting late produce onward disadvantage? Do early starters rocket off the chart? And, what do these findings tell us about the design of more optimal expectations and opportunities for the development of all children?