The thirty million word gap

The thirty million word gap

A fascinating study brought to my attention by Dr. Galit Benzvi.

Hart and Risley conducted observations to explore the effects of daily parent – child interactions on language and vocabulary development.  This research was published in 2004.

They discovered that up to the age of three, children from high SES families had been exposed to 30 million more words than children from low SES families!  This gap only widened over the years. 

Emotionally, up to the age of three, children from high SES families had been exposed to 560000 more words of praise and encouragement   than words of discouragement.  Children raised in low SES families had been exposed up to the age of three to 125000 more words of discouragement than encouragement.

A short summary of this research appears here: 

http://centerforeducation.rice.edu/slc/LS/30MillionWordGap.html

A more detailed (but still short) summary appears here:

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1317532.files/09-10/Hart-Risley-2003.pdf

Language development has a great influence on cognitive development.  The consequences are clear: early interventions in the public education system are not enough.  There needs to be work with parents on their linguistic interactions with their children at home.