Would you expect a 2 year old girl to be more advanced than a boy of the same age?
Or only in terms of language development and social ability?

Can you point me towards any threads/books about this or is it a bit of taboo subject?

Not really, depends on the children.

Anecdotal evidence only but I have a boy and a girl. The boy was born first and developed faster than the girl but I think that was almost out of necessity as he was only 15 months old when dd was born.

Linguistically, ds developed much faster than dd but socially dd is better than ds who is really just starting to learn the rules (at nearly 5).

Another 'not really, depends on the children' here. I've had a ds who spoke sentences at 19m and another that was hardly speaking at all at 2.5y. Social ability - I've had 'shy' girls and 'shy' boys, Quite gregarious girls and ditto for the boys. Definitely depends on the child imo.

That's really interesting, particularly as it goes against what I have observed so far.
I suspect I simply have not observed enough!

So is it just a myth that girls develop their language skills faster?

My DS and his als are all around 17 - 18 months.

From observation of his admittedly fairly small social circle - about 10, I'd say the girls do seem to be more developed vocally.

My chatterbox 23 month old DS would disprove your theory i think!

i agree with the other posters in that it really depends on the child

PALS!! not als

I've been told that the brain of the female foetus develops more quickly than that of the male foetus. Wonder if it's true.

When I was a teenager I remember being very aware (and a bit jealous)
at the clear advantage most girls enjoyed over the boys in terms of social awareness and emotional intelligence.

It manifested itself in various ways, for example girls preferring the company of older boys.

I have seen something similar happening with my dd:
She is fascinated by older toddlers and more often than not they return the compliment
and enthusiastically engage with her on her level.

Is that a girl thing?
My impression is that boys of that age don't seem that interested in other children.

That's interesting my ds's play with chn their own age and younger.

Again, I think it depends on the child. Ds has always been more interested in older children and adults as they have been better able to converse with him. But he is not good at emotional intelligence and stuggles to see why his actions have the consequences that they do sometimes. Dd (3) on the other hand is mostly interested in girls her own age who want to play the same kind of games that she does.

I suppose I am wondering whether those toddlers who are socially/linguistically less advanced than their peers are in fact focusing on something else - but what?

Presumably something that interests them more. Surely that could be something different from child to child. Or maybe they just haven't matured enough in a particular area compared to some of their peers.
I'm not sure what you are looking for. Children develop at different rates in different developmental areas, surely. I don't think it particularly matters what gender they are.

Juuule, what made me start this thread is actually a comment yesterday.

dd was praised for being 'advanced'.

She likes to talk, sing and socialise. Fine, let's call that advanced for argument's sake.
Does that imply, though, that other 2-year olds who don't talk or socialise much are 'behind'?
Or are they simply advanced at something else?

I am asking out of curiousity but for various practical reasons, too.
For one thing, I would have loved to have said something really nice and astute back to the lad's mum.

OK, I'll have to dig out the specific info, but iirc:

- girls are (statistically, on average) better at language, certainly for preschool years, & I think quite a long time beyond. According to my Miriam Stoppard the difference levels out in teen years "Boys are later in talking & slower to put words in sentences, & take longer to learn to read. Speech disorders such as stutterering are far more common in boys & boys outnumber girls in remedial reading classes by 4 to 1". Obviously that later stat has to do with how boys vs girls perform in school too.

- My recall is that girls are also more co-operative & skillful at group play (you could argue whether this is more 'advanced' than boys, though), more dexterous & physically able (countering the standard expectation).

My dad is lectures in child psychology, so I'll try & find some proper studies later, if you like?

Statistically girls do talk and socialise earlier, than boys. I don't think it's taboo to say so.

However, there are always exceptions to the rule.

In this instance the woman meant that your dd's speech and social skills have developed before her ds's who is the same age. This is statistically normal, so doesn't make your dd 'advanced' or her ds 'behind'.

or something

Ah, thanks for the insights!

And yes!, fp, would be intrigued to read up more. That's a very thoughtful offer

my 2 yr old DS is way behind his female peers at language and general amturity (if you can call anything about a 2yr old mature!). He is also slightly behind boys of his age too.

However is is significantly more dextrous and co-ordinated than any other 2 yr old I know.

also remember that any study will pick up any inante difference between girls and boys together with the effects of the enviroment. It could be argued that toys given to toddler girls (dolls, tea sets etc) require role play enabling faster language development

withandchips, exactly!

But what about the other way around:
Could I influence my dd's dexterity and co-ordination (to pick up on what Kew said) through certain toys or activities?

watch what other parents say in the playground to their los. Think boys are more encouragedd. also don't foget the difficulty of climbing in skirts, v cool girl localy often wears a short tutu over combats which I think covers both the girly and the pratical base

I think position in the family might have more bearing

DS (first child) was talking in sentences by 18 months .. DD didn't say anything until over 2 years

DS took his first step at 10 months, DD didn't until 17 months

DD seems to have more hand-eye co-ordination than DS

See, dd is 23 months and does not talk in full sentences.
'Advanced' is relative.

pmsl at 23 months and not talking in full sentences - DS is 29 months and has just started putting two (rather incoherent) words together!

now you have to understand that by a full sentence for 18 month old DS I mean "I want milk" rather than "Mater would you kindly hand me a glass of cow-juice please, thanks awfully ol' chappess" IYSWIM

oh and at that stage he called milk mook so it would've been "I want mook"

DaddyJ on Wed 07-May-08 10:29:12
"When I was a teenager I remember being very aware (and a bit jealous)
at the clear advantage most girls enjoyed over the boys in terms of social awareness and emotional intelligence."

My understanding is that this is something that applies to the infants/junior school years, not to the toddler years. It's something that starts when the children are about 4, when (some of) the girls suddenly start seeming more grown-up. Hence the disadvantage of boys in early education (no longer applies when they get to university). Note that the statistics quoted by an earlier poster do not cover the toddler years.

I have not seen any such clear difference in the baby/toddler stages. Not an expert, but what with extended family, toddler groups, neighbours, friends, I suppose I have had fairly close contact with 40 odd toddlers over the year.

Twig, I am disappointed now

Those of you who have seen studies on this could you tell me what kind of keywords I could google for?

Right, will ask my dad & return to this thread with proper data at a later date
But, in the meantime I would google smthg like gender difference child development or preschool development

And cory, my understanding is that these differences are evident from very early `(cf earlier comment about girls making sentances earlier)

Completely agree with witch&chips (although I would have to say, I know my dad would disagree - he's firmly behaviouralist & would argue that gender differences have evolved for a reason...)

fwiw, the verbal development of my two (one of each flavour) has been incredibly consistent (word totals very similar at similar ages, started first senstances at the same time etc)

behaviouralist - does that mean he believes in nature over nurture?

Will go off and do some googling, cheers!

Does articulate necessarily go hand in hand with sociable/socially adept?
Both my daughters (4.5 and nearly 3) are very voluble, quick to talk (though bilingual), full sentences by 18 mths etc., but the elder one is terribly shy, to the extent that she has difficulty saying "Hello" or "Goodbye" to people, especially people she doesn't know. SHe's OK once she's one of a crowd, with people she knows well, it's just one-on-one situations when all the attention is focused on her she can't deal with. Is that immaturity or jsut character?
The other is the life and soul of the party and loves "flirting" with adults.

may be an overall trend that girsl develop faster than boys

but there will be huge individual variation

just ban the word 'advanced'

means nothing at ALL esp at 2 years old

I remember the test that HV gave ds when he was around 2. He had to do blocks, draw a circle and then comment on some pictures. Ds gave all the "wrong" answers (i.e. ignored the obvious things) for a bit and then started to climb over the sofas and chairs. HV interpreted this as DS being bored as too advanced for the test but perhaps another child would be labeled with ADD and behind. Class and context makes such a difference when testing children

I have two boys who are fairly different.

DS1 only using single words at 21 months but something clicked and by his 2nd birthday he was talking in full sentences (textbook averages suggest 2 word sentences at 2nd birthday). So he started out as worse than the norm and ended up better. Still ahead of his age for vocab and reading, just coming up for 8yrs. Not very socially adept but he is borderline AS so this probably doesn't help.

DS2 was talking at single words at 10 mths and talking in full sentences at 18mths. Extremely good social skills and gets on with everybody although he can be very shy and takes a while to settle down.

There are some theories based on the fact that boys tend to focus on gross motor skills instead of language but DS2 was sitting alone at 3mths and walking at 11mths so not the case with him - he seemed to manage the motor skills and the language. DS1 who was a bit slower on the talking didn't walk until 14.5 mths. Not sure that theory stands up either.

As I recall the studies on boy/girl differences are not conclusive one way or another so on the whole, based on what I have read and my own children I would definitely join the 'depends on the child' team.

Thanks for all the contributions

I found two good books on this topic that I will try and track down at the library:
Baron-Cohen, 'The Essential Difference'
Leonard Sax - Why Gender Matters