Speech in same- and different-sex twins 4 and 5 years old

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the sex makeup of pairs of twins on language acquisition. Past research indicated that this variable plays a role in speech problems of twin children. The questions raised were whether being a boy or a girl and having a boy or girl co-twin affected linguistic performance. A language test was given to 30 pairs of boy-girl twins, 16 pairs of boy twins, and 16 pairs of girl twins whose average age was 4 years 8 months. Their test scores confirmed our hypotheses. The poorest performance was obtained by the boy twin pairs and the best performance, by either the girl twin pairs or the different-sex pairs. The results were interpreted in the light of findings on language learning differences between girls and boys, and also in terms of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development.