How much do parents think they talk to their child?

This study investigated whether parent perceptions of their own and their child’s levels of talkativeness were related to objective measures recorded via the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) System. Parents of 258 children aged 7 to 60 months completed a questionnaire on which they rated how much they and their child talked. Six months previously, they had recorded in their home language environment using the LENA System. Compared with recording measures, parents tended to overestimate how much they talk to their child, but were somewhat closer when estimating their child’s talkativeness. Results were similar for a smaller sample with concurrent recordings, indicating that calibration of talk volubility is challenging without a reference standard. An important implication is that parents’ motivation to participate in language-focused interventions may be reduced. That is, parents who overestimate how much they talk to their child may also underestimate what they could do to enhance their child’s home language environment.