A new study shows that in families with two working parents, fathers play a greater role in child language development than do mothers.
Researchers videotaped couples interacting with their two-year-old children. Returning a year later, they found that where fathers exhibited a more complex vocabulary, children showed greater language abilities. Mothers, however, did not appear to affect child language skills.
ABSTRACT: Mother and father language input to young children: Contributions to later language development