Individual Differences - part 2

1980s-90s has a

Nurture view of individual difference

being home during summer

didn’t help language development in lower-SES families; some even declined in vocab.

Hart & Risely created the Turner House Preschool in Kansas City during the War on Poverty to

Promote children’s language development.

The program led to a short-term spurt in vocab growth, but this improvement was neither accelerated nor sustained over time

children’s vocab gains slowed or even declined during the summer months

This led them to a longitudinal study of

kids at home to see the differences in quantity and quality of the their language input (higher vs. lower SES)

The quantity come from

average number of words spoken per hours

The differences of avg. number of words per hours of professional home vs. welfare home in 4 years is

the ‘30 million word’ gap

The quality come from

ratio of affirmatives vs. prohibitions 

Higher SES both give

more affirmatives and more words input

Poor families don’t talk to their kids enough, this led to

lower vocabulary -> worse academic outcome

other aspects of language

narrative (monologue vs. dialogue), poetry & music, comedy 

Follow up on (the ‘30 million word’ gap): Gilkerson et. al (2016)

said 4 million not 30

Follow up on (the ‘30 million word’ gap): Sperry, Sperry & Miller (2018)

critique the methods of the study

2 programs bridging the word gap

Providence Talks - Bloomberg Philanthropy and Thirty million words initiative (university of chicago) [found a solution to poverty to vocab]

legacy of the 30 million word gap: in research

examine differences in quality, rather than quantity and differences in speech processing speed

Research shows that the quality of language, not just

the quantity, plays a crucial role in children’s vocab development.

Cartmil et al. (2013) found that children learn more words when

a parent’s speech is less ambiguous, given clear cues of meaning.

Weisleder and Fernald (2013) showed that it’s the amount of

children's directed speech, not adult-to-adult talk, that predicts stronger language processing and vocab growth.

Hirsh-Pasek et. al (2015) further emphasized that

high-quality interactions involve joint engagement, routines, and turn-taking dialogue.

Looking while listening (LWL) is a procedure in which children

view 2 pictures while hearing a sentence that names one of them (find the spoon), and the researcher measures how their eye-gaze shifts in real time as the sentence unfolds

reaction time equals

Language processing speed

Fernald, Perfors & Marchman (2006) found that faster processing speed in the LWL task lead to

larger vocab growth

 This predicted long-term outcomes: Processing speed at 2 years positively correlated with

standardized tests of language & cognition at 8 years

Later research, Fernald, Marchman & Weisleder (2012) found significant

 SES differences in speech processing speed

higher SES 18 months’ processing speed =

lower SES 24 months’.

LENA (language environment analysis) is a small digital recorder that

children wear to capture all-day audio from their natural environment. It provides more objective and accurate data.

legacy of the 30 million word gap: in public

shifts away from fixing systemic problems, towards blaming parents

Giving up on families

They don’t talk enough to their kids

Giving up on children: some school don’t push for active learning for kids in school bc

the teachers and administrators agreed that the practice wouldn’t work at their school because of the kids' lack of vocabulary

legacy of 30 million words blames on other & 

identifies “easy” solutions (parents need to talk more) that ignore systemic problems