NPR has a story today about a new study that trained low-income moms to talk to their babies in order to close the vocabulary gap that begins very early in children. (This is the much-cited gap found in the Hart and Risley study in the 1990s.)
In the study, researchers taught parents to use more words while interacting with their children, and they found that two experiment groups did have more vocabulary-rich interactions with their children than the control group.
Good news, but the story quotes Russ Whitehurst, of Brookings, saying that this sort of intervention is only a beginning:
“If that’s not followed with good stimulation in school with continued positive parent interactions, if that experience is not built on, it’s not likely to have an enduring effect,” Whitehurst says.
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at 2:01 pm
I was extremely interested to hear this report. I am involved with a program here in NJ called ‘Read Now’ which encourages early intervention by reading to children beginning at birth. I go to a WIC clinic & know that in asking parents (underprivileged families) to read to their kids is all too often something they are suprised to hear about. You have just put a “new tool in my box” in that I can also ask parents to talk more to their babies & toddlers, something that I, as a privileged/professional parent took for granted & naturally did with my own 2 children.
I am passing your report onto my director of ‘Read Now’ & our committee. Most of us are retired professionals who hope that in our small way, we make a difference.
So, thank you !
at 8:01 pm
I just quit a job where the day care teachers talked “at” the children and they barely interacted with the two-year-olds in their care. It was awful for me to witness these women running their two-year-old classes like they were detainees in toddler detention facilities. The women sat at their desks and just barked orders at these groups of two-year-olds. Each Day Care teacher had ten children to manage and they did so with no assistant. These women were given alot of privacy in their little classrooms; no cameras to monitor the interactions and no audio recording to “listen in” for quality control. The children weren’t allowed to talk. They were supposed to listen to the day care teacher while she “clapped out” a few early childhood “cheers” and a few songs. (The songs were called out in a “cheer” type fashion instead of being sung. The day care teachers sound like they’re drill seargents leading a group of GI’s during their indoctrination process). The children were expected to follow orders and stay quiet. It was horrible for me to witness this emotional abuse. I quit and made reports to the proper authorities.