Developmental Psychology Copyright 1999 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1999, Vol. 35, No. 4, 1020-1023 0012-1649/99/S3.00

Parental Language and Verbal Responsiveness to Children

in Crowded Homes

Gary W. Evans and Lorraine E. Maxwell Betty Hart

Cornell University University of Kansas

This article is a secondary data analysis of the University of Kansas Language Acquisition Project, which
intensively studied, on a regular basis, parent and child language from age 6 months to 30 months. The
association between residential density and parent-child speech was examined. Parents in crowded
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homes speak in less complex, sophisticated ways with their children compared with parents in uncrowded
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

homes, and this association is mediated by parental responsiveness. Parents in more crowded homes are
less verbally responsive to their children. This in turn accounts for their simpler, less sophisticated speech
to their children. This mediational pathway is evident with statistical controls for socioeconomic status.
This model may help explain prior findings showing a link between residential crowding and delayed
cognitive development.

Several field studies and a few laboratory experiments indicate
that crowding is associated with negative socioemotional and
cognitive outcomes in young children. Negative outcomes have
included elevated psychophysiological stress (Aiello, Nicosia, &
Thompson, 1979; Evans, Lepore, Shejwal, & Palsane, 1998),
greater behavioral problems (Booth & Johnson, 1975; Saegert,
1982), and delayed cognitive development (Gottfried & Gottfried,
1984; Murray, 1974; Saegert, 1982; Wachs & Gruen, 1982; Wedge
& Petzing, 1970). The present study builds on these findings by
addressing an important question: What proximal processes are
invoked by high-density living conditions that could precipitate
such adverse developmental outcomes? Proximal processes are
reciprocal interactions between the developing organism and per-
sons, objects, and symbols in the immediate environment (Bron-
fenbrenner & Morris, 1998). The present study presents a repre-
sentative sampling, beginning in infancy until Age 3, of typical,
everyday parent-child verbal interactions in the homes of families
varying in residential density.
We explored the hypothesis that parents in more crowded homes
are less verbally responsive to their children. We also examined
evidence of a potentially injurious correlate of parental unrespon-
Gary W. Evans and Lorraine E. Maxwell, Department of Design and
Environmental Analysis, Cornell University; Betty Hart, Schiefelbusch
Institute for Life Span Studies, University of Kansas.
Preparation of this article was partially supported by the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture (Hatch Grants NY 327407 and 327408) and the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant 1 F33
HD08473-01).
We thank Todd Risley, coprincipal investigator on the original Kansas
Language Acquisition Project, from which this article is a secondary data
analysis. We also thank Steve Lepore for critical feedback on an earlier
version of the article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gary W.
Evans, Department of Design and Environmental Analysis, Martha Van
Rensselaer Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-4401. Elec-
tronic mail may be sent to gwel@cornell.edu.
1020
siveness: impoverished parent-to-child speech. The latter, which is
strongly linked to cognitive development, could further our under-
standing of previous developmental studies linking residential
crowding to delayed cognitive development.
Adults in crowded homes cope with the plethora of unwanted
social interaction in their residences by socially withdrawing from
one another (Baum, Gatchel, Aiello, & Thompson, 1981; Baum &
Valins, 1979). This withdrawal leads to impaired social support
among those who live in crowded homes (Evans & Lepore, 1993;
Evans, Palsane, Lepore, & Martin, 1989; Lepore, Evans, &
Schneider, 1991). Moreover, parents in more crowded homes are
rated as less responsive to their children in comparison with those
from less crowded homes (Bradley & Caldwell, 1984; Wachs,
1989; Wachs & Camli, 1991). Residential crowding is also posi-
tively correlated to the degree of chaos in homes, which, in turn,
is negatively associated with parental responsiveness to infants
(Matheny, Wachs, Ludwig, & Phillips, 1995). Moreover, the
amount of parent-to-infant speech is negatively correlated with
residential crowding (Wachs & Camli, 1991).
Thus, we have evidence that parents in more crowded homes are
less responsive to their children and talk to them less. We do not
know, however, whether the quality of parental speech is also
related to crowding, nor do we know whether the relations between
crowding and parental speech are mediated by parental respon-
siveness. Furthermore, none of these prior studies measured
parent-to-child speech or responsiveness continuously over ex-
tended periods of time. Instead, observers coded these behaviors
once at 12 months of age (Matheny et al., 1995; Wachs & Camli,
1991) or at 6-month (Wachs, 1989) or 12-month intervals (Bradley
& Caldwell, 1984).
Among the presumably unintended consequences of diminished
parental verbal responsiveness to children might be impoverished
speech to children. Perhaps under more crowded living conditions,
parents not only speak to their children less often (Wachs & Camli,
1991) but also speak with reduced complexity and sophistication,
in comparison with parents residing under more spacious condi-
 CROWDING AND PARENTAL LANGUAGE
tions. Thus, inhibited parental verbal responsiveness in reaction to
crowding could lead to impoverished verbal communication in the
dwellings of crowded families. We were able to evaluate both of
these hypotheses with a secondary data analysis of a longitudinal
data set on parental language. This data set includes extensive, in
vivo observations over a 2.5-year period of everyday parent-child
interaction, beginning at age 6 months. In accordance with prior
research, we expected less parental verbal responsiveness among
families living in crowded versus uncrowded conditions. We were
also able to test whether this increased unresponsiveness might, in
turn, account for lower quality, more impoverished parent-child
speech in crowded families.
Method
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This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
Participants
Participants were 42 midwestern American families (31% upper, 24%
middle, and 43% lower socioeconomic status [SES]), 60% Caucasian,
ranging in family size from 1 to 5 children (M = 1.69 children). Families
were recruited primarily from birth records and referrals from various local
agencies in the Kansas City, Kansas, area. The target child was observed
beginning at about 6 months until Age 3. More details on the sample are
available in Hart and Risley (1995).
Procedure
The primary goal of the original study, from which the present article is
a secondary analysis, was to investigate how children learn to talk in the
course of everyday, typical social interaction in the home. Families were
encouraged to engage in whatever typical behaviors they would normally
do over the course of each 1-hr observation period in the home. At no time
did the observer engage in conversation with the target child. Observations
occurred monthly over a period of 2.5 years. Evidence in Hart and Risley
(1995) indicated that the investigators successfully established sufficient
trust and familiarity with participating families so that unstructured, unob-
trusive observation was achieved.
Two variables from Hart and Risley's (1995) set of language measures
were extracted for the present analysis. They were supplemented with an
index of crowding: people per room. A room was defined by the presence
of a floor-to-ceiling wall with a defined entry separating the area from a
hall or another room. Because of the natural covariation of crowding with
SES and the latter's documented impacts on parent-child verbal interac-
tion (Hart & Risley, 1995), SES was used as a statistical control in all of
the analyses herein. SES was assigned according to census occupational
codes that represent income and educational attributes of the particular job
in the national labor force (Stevens & Cho, 1985).
The measure of parental language used in the present analysis was
language diversity. Language diversity is the sum of different nouns,
adjectives, and adverbs addressed to the child per hour. Each of these
components has an interrater reliability of 1.0. All reliability estimates
were based on 190 randomly selected samples. This measure of parental
language represents the richness and variety of experiences that parents
talk about with their children. It reflects the complexity and sophistication
of parent-to-child verbalization.
Parental verbal responsiveness is the proportion of all single parental
verbal utterances to the child within 5 s of the target child's behavior not
preceded by parental verbal initiation. Any child behavior that initiated a
parental verbal response was counted. These behaviors could be verbal or
nonverbal, which, of course, varied with the child's age. A parental
response could be nonverbal (e.g., the parent gave the child a requested
object without saying anything), but this rarely happened. The number of
parent-initiated verbalizations to the child was subtracted from all parental
1021
verbalizations to the child per hour. This number was then divided by the
total number of parental verbalizations during the 1-hr period. Interrater
reliability for each of these two components exceeded .95. Parental verbal
responsiveness is indicative of the relative amount of parent-to-child
speech that is controlled by the child. It exemplifies parental receptivity to
the child's needs and interests. For more information on the validity of the
language diversity and parental verbal responsiveness indexes, see Hart
and Risley (1995).
Results
To examine the hypothesized association between crowding and
parental verbal responsiveness and the latter's association with the
quality of parent-to-child verbal communication, we provide de-
scriptive data on these variables. We then discuss the results of a
series of regression analyses. As can be seen in Table 1, the pattern
of data suggests that parents in more crowded homes are both less
responsive and converse with their children in less complex ways.
Note that density is depicted in quartiles in Table 1 for descriptive
purposes only. Inferential analyses that follow maintain the con-
tinuous nature of the density measure, people per room.
To investigate the proposed interrelations among density, pa-
rental responsiveness, and parent-to-child speech more fully, we
used a series of regression equations with statistical control for
SES. The importance of controlling for SES is evident in the
correlation matrix (see Table 2).
Children in more crowded homes were exposed to significantly
less diverse language in comparison with their counterparts in
low-density homes (see Table 3, row 2). This relation held inde-
pendent of social class, as shown by the significant increment in
the change in R2 for the density term when entered after the SES
term in the hierarchical regression equation (ARZ = .07). Parental
verbal responsiveness was also a significant predictor of language
diversity in the home, after controlling for SES. Greater verbal
responsiveness to children's speech was positively associated with
high levels of language diversity uttered by parents to their chil-
dren, irrespective of social class.
Table 3 (row 4) is of most direct interest in evaluating whether
the reduction in parental responsiveness associated with crowding
might, in turn, explain more impoverished parental speech among
more crowded families. Examination of the F ratio for the incre-
ment in R2 for the density term (A/?2 = .02) shows that density was
no longer a significant predictor of language diversity after the
covariation with parental responsiveness was partialed out of the
equation (Table 3, row 4). The previously significant relation
between density and language diversity (Table 3, row 2) was no
longer significant when the covariation between density and pa-
Table 1
Descriptive Information on Density, Parental Responsiveness,
and Language Diversity
Density (people/room)
Variable <0.50 0.50-0.59 0.60-0.71 >0.71
Parental responsiveness 0.81 0.78 0.76 0.66
Language diversity 139.22 114.58 96.67 58.17
Note. Density quartiles are shown for descriptive purposes only. All
analyses used density as a continuous variable.
 1022 EVANS, MAXWELL, AND HART
Table 2
Correlation Matrix for Variables Included in
the Regression Analyses
Variable 1 2
1. Socioeconomic status — -.55* .50** .68**
2. Density -.51** -.60**
3. Verbal responsiveness .69**
4. Language diversity
** p < .001.
rental responsiveness was statistically removed. The relation be-
tween density and parental verbal responsiveness, after controlling
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for SES, was significant (Afl2 = .08), F(2, 39) = 4.59, p < .03.1
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This pattern of results indicates that the negative relation between
household crowding and language diversity is at least partially
attributable to reduced parental responsiveness in crowded homes.
Discussion
The diversity and sophistication of parental speech is lower in
more crowded households. This association is statistically inde-
pendent of SES. The link between household crowding and paren-
tal speech quality, in turn, appears to be mediated by parents'
verbal responsiveness to their children. Parental speech is impov-
erished in more crowded homes because parents are less respon-
sive to their children's behavior.
We have uncovered a plausible mechanism to explain previ-
ously documented relations between household crowding and poor
cognitive development in infants (Gottfried & Gottfried, 1984;
Wachs & Camli, 1991; Wachs & Gruen, 1982) and in elementary-
age school children (Murray, 1974; Saegert, 1982; Wedge &
Petzing, 1970). The finding that density is positively associated
with reduced parental verbal responsiveness to children is also
consistent with previous observers' ratings of lower parental re-
sponsiveness in high- compared with low-density households
(Bradley & Caldwell, 1984; Wachs, 1989). Our findings are also
consistent with Matheny et al. (1995), who noted that crowded
homes were more chaotic and that the degree of chaos was related
to less parental responsiveness to infants.
The present study makes several unique contributions to re-
search on crowding and human development. Foremost, these data
represent the only in vivo, sustained longitudinal analysis of family
interactions in homes of varying density. Although many investi-
gators have examined the developmental correlates of chronic
residential crowding, no research has observed actual family in-
teractions over time in crowded homes (Aiello, Thompson, &
Baum, 1985; Baum & Paulus, 1987). Second, we show for the first
time that quality of parent-to-child speech is related to density.
Third, we have investigated a mediational pathway showing that
speech quality appears to degrade in more crowded homes in
relation to diminished parental verbal responsiveness. Diminished
parental verbal responsiveness is consistent with the more general
theoretical proposition that crowding is harmful because people
learn to cope with high residential density by social withdrawal.
Unfortunately, social withdrawal becomes an overgeneralized
strategy that is applied indiscriminately, negatively affecting social
support (Baum & Valins, 1979; Baum et al., 1981; Evans &
Lepore, 1993; Evans et al., 1989; Lepore et al., 1991) and possibly,
as suggested herein, parents' responsiveness to their children.
Because the conclusions of this study are derived from correla-
tional data, it is important that the findings be replicated in a
prospective, longitudinal design. Although we have ruled out SES
as a plausible rival hypothesis, it is always possible that some other
factor related to self-selection into housing could be driving the
associations uncovered herein. Although we can rule out SES as
indicated by normative income and educational attributes of par-
ents' job classifications, it is possible that some other variable or
variables could be driving the present results. Given the strong
connection between parental language style and education, we
repeated all of the analyses herein with additional statistical con-
trols for the years of education of the mother and the father. This
did not change any of our conclusions. Nonetheless, caution is
warranted until our findings can be replicated in a prospective,
longitudinal design.
Because the original intent of the data collection for this study
was unrelated to crowding, the range of density sampled here is
relatively restricted (range = 0.30-1.25 people/room). Thus, it
would also be valuable to examine parental language and verbal
responsiveness among families across a wider range of household
densities. This might also further the important objective of iden-
tifying at what point density begins to affect children negatively.
Inspection of Table 1 suggests that somewhere above 0.71 persons
per room, marked drops in parental responsiveness occur with
increasingly serious declines in parental language quality.
One plausible, alternative explanation for why residential
crowding is correlated with poorer quality parental speech is
simply that parents in more crowded homes have less time and
energy to give to each child. As the ratio of the number of children
to the number of adults goes up, parents are less responsive per
child.2 Thus, we created the ratio of number of children per
number of adults in each of our 42 households to examine this
alternative explanation for our crowding results. The ratio of
number of children to parents in the home was not related to
parental speech quality. The well-documented, negative cognitive
correlates of household density (Gottfried & Gottfried, 1984; Mur-
ray, 1974; Saegert, 1982; Wachs & Gruen, 1982; Wedge & Petz-
ing, 1970) are not attributable to divided parental attention to
children. We propose that crowding is related to diminished pa-
rental verbal responsiveness, which leads to impoverished parent-
to-child speech, because families cope with the surfeit of unwanted
social interaction accompanying crowding by socially withdraw-
ing from one another.
In summary, independent of SES, residential crowding is sig-
nificantly correlated with parents' verbal responsiveness to their
1
As a partial check on spuriousness, we reversed the order of inclusion
for the hypothetical mediator (parental responsiveness) and density. If one
or more unspecified variables accounted for the relation between density
and parental responsiveness, reversing the order of terms in the fourth
regression equation of Table 3 would not have affected the regression
results. However, reversing the terms in the fourth regression equation of
Table 3 did substantially change the results. Parental responsiveness with
the SES control was significantly related to language diversity (b = .43)
after density was partialed out, F(3, 38) = 13.55, p < .001. These results
do not support the alternative hypothesis of spuriousness.
2
We acknowledge an anonymous reviewer for this creative idea.
 CROWDING AND PARENTAL LANGUAGE 1023
Table 3
Regression of Language Diversity Onto Density and Parental Responsiveness

Total F
Predictor R2 (total R2) AR2 F(AR2) df b SE of b
Socioeconomic status .46 34.65** .46 34.65** 1,40 1.47** 0.25
Density .53 22.36** .07 5.86* 2, 39 -77.49* 31.55
Responsiveness .63 34.67** .17 18.72** 2,39 215.49** 49.80
Density with additional control
for responsiveness .65 24.23** .02 2.07 3, 38 -42.33 29.42

*p<.05. **p<.001.
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children. As in prior studies, we found that parents in more Evans, G. W., Lepore, S. J., Shejwal, B. R., & Palsane, M. N. (1998).
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

crowded homes are less responsive to their children. An important
correlate of this relative unresponsiveness appears to be less so-
phisticated parental speech. Parents in more crowded homes use
less diverse language when speaking to their children. This pattern
of findings may provide insight into why delays in cognitive
development have been observed in several studies among chil-
dren from more crowded homes. Although we can rule out SES,
parental education, and the sheer amount of parental time and
effort allocated per child as alternative explanations for the rela-
tionships we have uncovered, prospective, longitudinal data are
necessary to increase our confidence that the proposed model is
both robust and not confounded by one or more, as yet, unspecified
variables.
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Received May 7, 1998
Revision received December 7, 1998
Accepted December 8, 1998