Language Environment and Maternal Expectations: An Evaluation of the LENA Start Program

We thank Delitza Hernandez, Michelle Gifford, Shanae Smith, and Mary Triguba for their excellent research assistance. We are thankful to all of the LENA Foundation team. Jill Gilkerson and Steve Hannon for all of the support and encouragement relating to the research aspects of this project. Traci Martin and Jess Simmons supported our implementation of the LENA Start Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Their dedication to this program, which we have heard from several other national sites, energized our team. We are grateful to Jeffrey Richards, who generously shared crucial knowledge on operationalizing the LENA system data and provided valuable comments about this research. We thank participants at the following conferences: Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria in Natal, Brazil; CONBATRI in Juiz de Fora, Brazil; the Austin-Bergen Conference at UT Austin; and the briq Belief Conference at the University of Bonn. Finally, we thank seminar participants at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City, EESP at FGV in Sao Paulo, Boston University, the University of Minnesota, the CEPA Seminar at Stanford University, Vancouver School of Economics, and Rochester University. This research was supported by grant 1R01HD073221-01A1 by the National Institute of Health. All remaining errors are ours. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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