title: Asian children's verbal development: A comparison of the United States and Australia.
abstract: Using longitudinal cohort studies from Australia and the United States, we assess the pervasiveness of the Asian academic advantage by documenting White-Asian differences in verbal development from early to middle childhood. In the United States, Asian children begin school with higher verbal scores than Whites, but their advantage erodes over time. The initial verbal advantage of Asian American children is partly due to their parent's socioeconomic advantage and would have been larger had it not been for their mother's English deficiency. In Australia, Asian children have lower verbal scores than Whites at age 4, but their scores grow a faster rate and converge towards those of Whites by age 8. The initial verbal disadvantage of Asian Australian children is partly due to their mother's English deficiency and would have been larger had it not been for their Asian parent's educational advantage. Asian Australian children's verbal scores grow at a faster pace, in part, because of their parent's educational advantage.
authors.affiliation: University of Western Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: hchoi228@uwo.ca.
authors.forename: Kate H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Queens College, City University of New York, United States.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hsin
authors.affiliation: Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, United States.
authors.forename: Sara S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: McLanahan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001208:Asia; D044466:Asian People; D001315:Australia; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004522:Educational Status; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D044465:White People
keywords: Asian model minority hypothesis; Cross-national research; Verbal development