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Reading books boosts child language

A new study provides more evidence that reading books to young children and helping them visually to follow the story improves a child's language.

How mums talk influences children’s perspective-taking ability

New research shows that kids whose mums talk more frequently about others' thoughts tend to be better at taking another's perspective than other children.

About the Australian Early Development Index

The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) program is conducted by the Centre for Community Child Health

National snapshot of children's development

Nearly a quarter of Australian children could be developmentally at risk, according to the findings of the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI)

Language and reading impairments are associated with increased prevalence of non-right-handedness

Handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders because of its link with language hemispheric dominance. No clear pattern has emerged, possibly because of small samples, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria across studies.

Caregiver sensitivity predicts infant language use, and infant language complexity predicts caregiver language complexity, in the context of possible emerging autism

While theory supports bidirectional effects between caregiver sensitivity and language use, and infant language acquisition-both caregiver-to-infant and also infant-to-caregiver effects-empirical research has chiefly explored the former unidirectional path. In the context of infants showing early signs of autism, we investigated prospective bidirectional associations with 6-min free-play interaction samples collected for 103 caregivers and their infants (mean age 12-months; and followed up 6-months later).

Landmark language study draws to a close - but the work is just beginning

A joint initiative between The Kids Research Institute Australia, The University of Western Australia, the University of Kansas and Nebraska University, it is the world’s only study to conduct such a detailed assessment of language and literacy development from infancy through the formative adolescent years.

Looking at language

Hearing your child’s first word is a precious moment for any parent but while most children begin to talk within 12 to 24 months of age, some take much longer.

Kids with ADHD struggling at school

A study by The Kids Research Institute Australia has found children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have significantly worse school outcomes.

Rethink needed on literacy intervention

A new study by The Kids Research Institute Australia has found current early intervention programs are failing to identify a large proportion of children with language an