Mothers’ Work Status and 17‐Month‐Olds’ Productive Vocabulary

Abstract

Literature examining the effects of mothers’ work status on infant language development is mixed, with little focus on varying work schedules and early vocabulary. We use naturalistic data to analyze the productive vocabulary of 44 17‐month‐olds in relation to mothers’ work status (full time, part time, stay at home) at 6 and 18 months. Infants who experienced a combination of care from mothers and other caretakers had larger productive vocabularies than infants in solely full‐time maternal or solely other‐caretaker care. Our results draw from naturalistic data to suggest that this care combination may be particularly beneficial for early lexical development.