Toddler development: Girls develop faster than boys - right?

[DaddyJ]

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?

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

dgs was talking in 3 word sentences by 18 months,now at 2ad a half he can hold a conversation which can be both accurate and funny eg.
dgs:What you munching mummy?
dd;a biscuit,do you want one?
dgs:I'm a bit busy being naughty.I'll have a biscuit later when I'm good!
I have 9 dgc and there hasnt been much difference between boys and girls in speech but girls have tended to be socially more advanced in their dealings with other children.

ds one walked at 10 months was slow to talk abdhas smallerbut close knit group of friends.ds 2 walked at 12 months and was talking very early infact at 12 still talks alot and is very socialable .

DD walked 14 months talking by 18 months clearly and life soul of party

Dd4 bhas Gdd and Sli so still not talking at nearly 4 but whizz with signing