The secret life of twins: we’d tell you if we could! Parental perspectives on the early language acquisition of twins and twin language study.

Purpose: This thesis, the secret life of twins: we’d tell you if we could! Parental perspectives of the early language acquisition of twins and twin language study, asks three questions: • To what extent do parents of twins feel their children have/had a speech and language delay? • Are there any factors that parents feel may have/had impacted on their child’s speech and language delay? • How far do parents feel they have/had been supported with the speech and language delay? The thesis starts by presenting the background and reasoning for the research, together with the discussion of limited research in the field. A balanced and in depth discussion and review of the literature studies four main themes: typical language development, twin development from birth-five years, parental perceptions of twin language and nature versus nurture. It also explores the interlinked subthemes within these. Design/Methodology/Approach: This research adopts the perspective of Pragmatism. Within this study, I use my narrative to show my positionality alongside the research, and my motivations for conducting this study, which includes consideration of the research topic and research questions, methodological framework, and consideration of mixed methods research. This study is both quantitative and qualitative, using online questionnaire methodology to conduct a large-scale study, considering my own narrative to look at the connection between the two, and utilising the content analysis approach. Findings: The research questions, methodological framework and literature review established the foundations for the content data analysis and coding. I used a combination of online analysis systems, and an excel spreadsheet to which I exported the quantitative data and manually input the responses from the free text sections and created a coded system. The qualitative findings were analysed using the constant comparative method and principles of content analysis. The data are presented through a range of multi-media, charts and graphs, word clouds, statistics, and text. The thesis then moves to discussion and ends with my Conclusion and final thoughts. Originality: This research has established new knowledge on parental perspectives of twin language delay and emphasizes the significance of these. It explores the prevalence and significance of delayed speech and language acquisition to children in a twin pairing and sets out the implications from the effect of attending an early childhood education setting and the need for an early intervention approach in speech and language for twins.