Shafto, Carissa L.Geren, JoySnedeker, Jesse2012-11-302010Shafto, Carissa L., Joy Geren, and Jesse Snedeker. 2010. Effects of maternal input on language in the absence of genetic confounds: Vocabulary development in internationally adopted children. In CogSci 2010: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: August 11-14, 2010, Portland, Oregon, ed. Stellan Ohlsson and Richard Catrambone, 2775-2780. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.9781617388903http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:9978130Parents provide children with both genes (nature) and linguistic input (nurture). A growing body of research demonstrates that individual differences in children's language are correlated with differences in parental speech. Although this suggests a causal link between parental input and the pace of language development, these correlations could reflect effects of shared genes on language, rather than a causal link between input and outcome. We explored effects of maternal input on English vocabulary development in internationally-adopted (IA) children - a population with no genetic confound. IA preschoolers demonstrated some of the same correlations with input as in previous studies; specifically, measures of input quality were significantly correlated with vocabulary. However, IA infants did not demonstrate this pattern. Differences between the age groups may be related to the pace of acquisition; more rapid vocabulary development in the preschoolers suggests that access to, and children's ability to make use of input, may be a limiting factor for the infants.en-USConference Paper2012-11-30