In 2010, researchers with the Harvard Graduate School of Education began exploring how a toddler's language environment affects his vocabulary development. Researchers studied mother-child pairs from low-income families and found that mothers who used a wider vocabulary and assortment of words had toddlers with faster growth in vocabulary use.
Consider using this research as a starting point for your family topic paper. Consider adding on to the research by performing an investigation into how toddlers learn to speak from their mothers and fathers as well as brothers and sisters. Develop a paper that explores how early childhood vocabulary development increases or decreases depending on the toddler's family life.
Consider looking at how families who play games--board games, thinking games, and sports--affect a toddler's social behavior and intellectual vigor. Think about studying a family, or two or three families, and observing their game-playing behavior. Note which families play intellectual games with their toddlers, like memory games, word games and math- or science-based activities.
Closely observe the families playing with their children and deduce habits and behavioral patterns you notice in the toddler's reception and reaction to game-playing.
Explore how families inspire their children to imagine. Ask a group of families and their toddlers to participate in a day-long imagination workshop. When you invite families to the school or nursery, ask each famil --or the one family you choose to observe--to play an imaginative exercise with their toddler that they usually play at home. Examples may include asking their child to make up a story about the room they are in, add an ending to a book they have read or play a game where they invent all the rules.
If the family encourages this behavior, notice the behavior and the intellectual curiosity of the child. Compare this finding to a family that does not encourage imaginative exercises as much. Explore how families manipulate a child's creative proclivity.