Engagement of networks related to attention, executive function, and sensory processing during parental vs experimenter story-listening: an fMRI study

The literature in the field of parent-child interaction and language development repeatedly points to the benefit of book reading to the child with respect to language development. However, whether there is a particular benefit specifically for parental reading is unknown and whether the child's brain is stimulated differently when the parent is reading a book (vs an experimenter) is also unknown. Our results show that parental reading engages brain regions related to cognitive abilities, attention, language abilities and future reading skills in children even prior to reading age. Parental reading is important for the development of these brain regions.