According to a Stanford University study, children from poor households can already be 6 months behind their more advantaged peers in language development at the age of 2. One major reason is that their parents don’t speak enough with them. The culture of talk can vary extremely between the different categories of families. Some children hear as much as 1,200 words per hour, while in some homes children hear as few as… 60 words per hour!
Language learning begins from day one and the amount of speech provided by the parents is essential in building the foundations of their children in this matter. The first step to close the language gap is to speak and read to babies and toddlers as much as possible, even if the child seems to not understand the meaning of the words.
Picture: Alice in Wonderland, by George Dunlop Leslie (Wikimedia Commons, w/Effects)
