By Joanna Sax
In President Obama’s State of the Union address, he discussed creating affordable pre-school to all children. Studies have shown that early childhood education is associated with academic success. This is an important policy initiative; it’s also very expensive.
In an effort to reduce the disparity in the academic profiles of children, there may be some initiatives that can be started while the proposal for publicly funded early childhood education works its way through Congress. One approach that is being tested is talking to your baby.
A recent NY Times article described a scientific study concerning how talking to your baby is correlated with achievements in school. It turns out, according to the article, that low-income parents of children speak fewer words to their babies compared to high-income parents and that by the time the children are of school-age, the children from poorer families have heard millions of fewer words. This means that by the time the child is 3, they have heard 10s of millions of fewer words and the article suggests that this is correlated with IQ and academic success.
This is an issue that can be addressed! Creative problem solving can be used to create programs to educate lower-income parents to talk more to their babies. The increase in words alone might provide advantages to lower-income children that they didn’t have before. This study provides a good example of the application of a scientific study to address social, health and economic issues.