COLLEGE PARK, MD (April, 2013) The achievement gap between poor and wealthier children widens ever year with the earliest signs appearing by the time a child is one year old. According to a recent New York Times article, By the time a poor child is 1 year old, she has most likely already fallen behind middle-class children in her ability to talk, understand and learn.
Research suggests that this gap can be attributed to the level of language exposure a child receives at a young age. Children whose families are on welfare talk to their children much less than children of middle-class or professional families. And because a childs level of language tends to level off when it matches that of the parents, a language deficit is passed down from generation to generation. However, researchers do not yet fully understand why wealthier, more educated parents talk to their young children more.
Research from Dr. Meredith Rowe, Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, offers one possible answer. Dr. Rowe has found that poor women are just simply unaware of the importance of talking to their babies. While poorer mothers depend on relatives for child-rearing advice, middle-class women are better educated on some issues of child development, and thus talking to baby has become part of middle-class culture.
Dr. Rowe, Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, studies the factors that contribute to childrens language and literacy development.
Read the article here [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/the-power-of-talking-to-your-baby/].
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