CIENCIASMEDICASNEWS: The key to children’s intelligence and success in school

miércoles, 9 de diciembre de 2015

The key to children’s intelligence and success in school

Family Edge looks at news and trends affecting the family in the light of human dignity. Our focus is the inspiring, creative, humorous, annoying, ridiculous, and dangerous ideas in the evening news. Send tips and brainwaves to the editor, Tamara Rajakariar, at tamara.rajakariar@ mercatornet.com - See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/the-key-to-childrens-intelligence-and-success-in-school/17314#sthash.0WLYWR7t.dpuf

WEDNESDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2015

The key to children’s intelligence and success in school

BY MOIRA EASTMAN

You have heard that it is important to read to and with your children, and that is true.

But it is even more important to talk to and with your children. U.S. research shows there is an incredible difference between ordinary American families in the amount of talking they customarily do, and that difference is closely related to the children’s eventual intelligence.

The parents of children who were developing particularly well, spoke 32 million more words to their children, by age four, than did the parents of the children who were learning the least and who went on to school failure.

The “good learners” heard almost four times as many words spoken to them in the home, by age four, as the poorest learners did.

The ‘good learners’ heard 45 million words spoken to them, in the home by age four. The children developing least well heard only 13 million words spoken to them in the home by age four.

The amount of talk, to the children, in the home, was tightly linked with subsequent IQ scores. “With few exceptions, the more parents talked to their children, the faster the children’s vocabularies were growing and the higher the children’s IQ test scores at age 3 and later.

“Amount of parent talk accounted for all the correlation between socioeconomic status (and/or race) and the verbal intellectual accomplishments of these 42 young American children.”

The rate at which children’s vocabulary grew was closely linked to their subsequent IQ scores.

Mothers do most of this talking, and this talking is building children’s intelligence

Mothers are the major childcarers of children from birth to age four.

Women speak 20,000 words a day. Men speak 7,000.

Women get a major dose of feel-good hormones from talking to anyone, but especially to their children and from responding to their children’s needs.

It’s words spoken to the children that count. Words overheard, or words from TV or radio do not count. It’s speaking to the child that counts.

Moira Eastman, PhD, is an Australian writer specialising in family topics.

- See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/the-key-to-childrens-intelligence-and-success-in-school/17314#sthash.0WLYWR7t.dpuf

Australia has a rich tradition of folk poetry – or bush poetry, as it’s called here. One of the best-loved is “Said Hanrahan”, a gentle satire about Irish settlers chewing the fat on Sundays outside the local church.

In the 19th century, farming and mining were the dominant industries and good weather was not just a conversational gambit but the difference between subsistence and abject poverty.

Hanrahan, who has become a byword for pessimism in Australian culture, always looks on the dark side. In the middle of drought conditions, which is most of the time here, Hanrahan says: “We’ll all be rooned if rain don’t come this week."

The joke is this: that after the ensuing flood, he’s still moaning: "We’ll all be rooned if this rain doesn’t stop." It does stop, of course, and the grass grows green and lush for the cattle. But Hanrahan is not daunted by the failure of his predictions.

"There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."

It’s a simple poem, but one with a profound message: some people love living on the edge of calamity, especially calamitous weather. It’s an attitude which fills newspapers during climate conferences. But, as Ted Lefroy points out in our lead article about environmental writing, “if we’re overshooting now, was there a period when were we travelling OK? At what time in history do these authors think humans had it right?”