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Reading to young children may reduce social and emotional problems later in their lives
Clinical Question
Does reading to children younger than 3 years have any benefits in addition to increased language development?
Bottom line
In addition to a previously shown increased development of language and literacy skills, reading to children younger than 3 years is linked to lower scores of social and emotional risks when measured after 3 years of age. 2b
Reference
Study design: Cohort (retrospective)
Funding: Foundation
Setting: Outpatient (primary care)
Synopsis
This study was conducted at a large academic medical practice in the United States. Over a period of approximately 5.5 years, 5693 children between the ages of 30 months and 66 months were seen at least once and had their shared reading frequency documented at least once. The outcome was evidence of social-emotional difficulties, assessed by the Ages and Stages: Social Emotional Questionnaire (ASQ:SE), a screening tool in regular use in the practice at the time. Fifty-one percent of the children in the sample were male, 75% were parent-reported Black, and 80% were publicly insured. Sixteen percent of ASQ:SE scores were suggestive of social-emotional concerns; 6% of caregivers reported sharing reading "rarely" (0–1 day per week). Other frequency categories included "most days," (5–7 days per week; 54% of children), or "some days" (2–4 days per week; 40%). Children with rare shared reading had a higher risk of an ASQ:SE above cutoff compared with those with shared reading on most days (adjusted risk ratio 1.62; 95% CI 1.35 - 1.92).
Reviewer
Allen F. Shaughnessy, PharmD, MMedEd
Professor of Family Medicine
Tufts University
Boston, MA
Comments
Not a cause but a marker?
It’s likely that the families that read rarely were less functional than the others. Infrequent reading is probably a marker of low functioning which is itself the cause of the resultant child emotional dysfunction.
Proxy
Could frequency of reading be a proxy for some other risk factor concerning social development?
Reading to young children may reduce social and emotional pr
Suspect that there was greater total positive adult interaction with the children who were read to. So, was really only the reading which reduced later social and emotional problems?
Correlation does not equal causation
Obviously I support reading to kids but there may be multiple co-founding factors. The parents who did vs didn't read might have innumerable other characteristics of interaction/education/mental health status/poverty or even neglect etc that correlate with reading and play more of a role in their kids' social & emotional development
reading to children
reduces emotional and social problems when children are older