– The early results of a program created by Stanford psychologists reveal that teaching parents how to talk to their young children can enhance the language development of their offspring. Research has revealed that the toddlers who were told lesser words during their early years process language slower than their peers who benefited from a more abundant and, above all, richer speech. This difference in language development and vocabulary scope is called the “word gap” by education specialists. The main concern is that this academic disadvantage has a strong probability to continue into elementary school – and beyond.
– Scientific experiments have shown that the language abilities of children from low socioeconomic status (SES) improve slower and that the word gap between kids from privileged and underprivileged families begins to widen during infancy. On average, by 24 months, the children from low SES environments have only the language skills of their 18-month-old counterparts from high SES families. A good reason to take measures as early as possible in this domain.
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