Since our student, Ryan Magee, did not publish his post, please find below Blog Summary 9 from my other section. Responses are due on Friday, Feb. 13th, at class time.
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There is a pervasive assumption in the twin and language development literature that twins are somewhat delayed in language development and more prone to language disabilities.
In the assigned article, the author summarizes several different case studies performed with the intention of discerning whether or not there was a language delay in twins. One early study in particular found that twins usually either spoke in shorter sentences or not very much at all compared to a person of single birth.
There was also a slight difference in a twin's vocabulary than that of a singleton.
Also it was not just biological factors, low birth weight and birth order, that separated the twin case studies but that of maternal speech to the child that added into the resulting language delays. So both biological and environmental factors effect the speech of twins. Even with these factors, most twins don't suffer from any sort of language impairment once they've reached early childhood.
The author does state however that there are several flaws in these case studies. One study described that the researchers did not find it necessary to separate the twins with actual learning impairments from the other twins which lowered the overall results of the study. The researchers also did not record birth weight and birth order of the twins, which has been learned to factor in to language delay. The twins also were not observed independently from one another which might have skewed the results as well.
Most research though has come to the conclusion that it is not biological but social factors that leads twins to having more of a language delay than singletons. They believe this is because as a twin you tend to receive less direct parental speech.
The article also concludes with the idea that the more older siblings you have, the lower your IQ. The general sibling situation states that the lower a child's birth position the lower his or her IQ will be. Even more so when it comes to twins because having a twin is the most extreme case possible of having a sibling.
I felt that the article showed so much fault in the studies that I could not really believe in the results. And since the author said no language delays exist after early childhood, that it really is not fair to single out twins as having language development issues.
by: Danielle McCarty
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14 comments:
I had never heard of the idea of twins having delayed language development. I don't think that this is right, either. All children learn to speak at different time. One can't go by a book to realize that a child should already be speaking. If someone goes by books they are going to think there is something wrong with there child. When it is only that children do not learn at the exact same speed. To simply single twins out is to broad. I think that this assumption is wrong because there is no way to really tell if their language is delayed.
I thought this blog about twins having delayed language development was strange!! It really did not seem to make since to me. I have never heard of twins having a delayed language before, and I also thought it was weird how they did not even record which twin was first, the birth weight or anything! I believe if there is a way to make this article correct in any way, one would have to interview many more than one set of twins! Obviously people learn at different speeds, but I think that it has nothing to do with if they are a twin or not!
I also have never heard of language delays in twins, but I have also never interacted with a twin before early childhood age. This could be possible but I think better and more studies need to be done to make an accurate conclusion. It does make sense, however, that the cause of the delay is less parental speech given to the twins. We learn to talk from our interaction with our parents and if the parent has more than one child to talk to that means less time for each child. The other idea that I found interesting was the idea that the more siblings one has the lower the IQ. I do not think that this finding is correct at all. I am the third child and I am not any less intelligent than my siblings. I think that IQ depends on the person and not his or her birth order.
I have never been aware that twins have language delays. It does not seem like something that would cause anything like that. Obviously, more research is needed. Everyone is different so maybe it is an age thing or a gender thing; not just twins. I find it hard to believe that it is just about them being a twin. There are most likely more factors contribute.
To be frank, I found this idea of delayed language development of twins a bit ironic. If anything, I always thought that it would be the opposite. Twins always seem to have these rare, unnamable abilities between each other and they tend to develop stride for stride with each other, if not naturally then by pure competition. I do suppose that it is understandable that the cognitive side of twins might be underdeveloped to begin with, just like their birth weight.
I agree with the others when I say that this study on twins seems to be askew. From my own personal experience with twin nephews, they have no trouble communicating with each other or anyone else. Individuals learn at different rates, no matter how many siblings they may have.
I never knew that there was a delay in language development in twins. I don't know if that can be truly trusted. The article states that the younger the sibling, the lower the IQ. This is not true, because my younger sister has probably a higher IQ than me. I believe that there must have been a lot of problems with this study.
I had always heard that twins share a language particular to themselves, but that it didn't affect their regular communication in any way. If low birth weight was taken into consideration in the study, I feel that may have more to do with any developmental delays than simply being a twin. Maybe twins, because of their shared, unique communication patterns just learn differently than others.
Prior to reading this article, I had never heard of the possible relation between twins and delayed language development. The studies have not been thorough enough for me to believe the results. I think that instead of it being a biological issue, it's more of a social factor that hasn't been explored enough. Children learn at their own pace; every teacher knows that. I think it is ridiculous to think that only twins have a different learning rate. Researchers need to conduct more studies and include more singletons. When the tests results are shown with zero mistakes, I'll believe it.
It’s crazy to think that just because you’re a twin that you would have language development problems. I can see both sides to this statement though; I can see how being a twin you would get less parental direct speech resulting in slower development. The blog also talked about the more siblings you have the lower your IQ will be and I find that hard to believe. It seemed like this blog was throwing around a lot of outlandish statements. I know a couple of sets of twins and a lot of people I know are the youngest members of their families and I’ve never heard of or seen any examples of anyone of them ever having language development problems.
I never knew twins could have a delayed language development. I knew a couple sets of twins growing up in school, and I don't recall any of them having delayed speech problems. On the other hand, the oldest one always seemed to be more involved in school work, while the other didn't care as much. This could be some relation to the higher IQ discussed in the article.
My understanding in language development, is that each child has their own time of developing speech. Based on studies, it does show the oldest twin usually has a higher IQ. At what age do they generally measure this? And as the twins get older do they measure their IQ again? I think it is irrelevant to say that the oldest twin; perhaps, is the smartest of the two. People change throughout their lifetime. Some people get wiser and others, not so much.
I have a set of twin cousins. My cousin Nick is an intelligent guy. His sister Nichole is not so intelligent. Nick and Nichole were split up in school at an early age, Nick received reading instruction with "Phonics" and Nichole received instruction through the use of "Sight Words." The twins were also treated differently at home, thus they developed differently because of school and their home life. It sounds to me that the study done was not a very good one, I would say mediocre at best if not down right bad. As for younger siblings having a lower IQ and putting the notion out there that younger siblings are not as smart I believe that to be rubbish. My younger brother is just as smart as I am, in fact in many areas he is smarter and there are some that I am smarter of us. Out of my parents siblings my father is the smartest and my mother is the smartest out of hers as well so I just can't seem to bring myself to believe that this research is valid.
I found this very interesting because i have never heard that twins have a delay in their language development. I believe it would be the complete opposite. If one of the twins was receiving more learning one-on-one time with the parents, the twins are with each other all day and the other twin would pick up on the speech development would be. Twins are normally very competitive when they are younger. Also this seem like it was just a case study and and has no real scientific evdence behind it. I just cannot agree wit this article.
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