I recently read this article in the New York Times Magazine on genes, environment, and intelligence -- ol' nature vs. nurture continues. The article begins by reminding us of the many studies of adopted children which find "changing a child’s life circumstances won’t alter the hard facts of nature." But it goes on to cite a new study that suggests that the adopting family's socioeconomic status does make a big difference in their adopted child's I.Q. Go ahead and guess what type of difference. Yep, affluent parents ended up raising smarter kids.
I read on with interest, and I came upon this finding: "By the time they are 4 years old, children growing up in poor families have typically heard a total of 32 million fewer spoken words than those whose parents are professionals."
I read this at the breakfast table. As I fed my son his breakfast. In total silence.
Okay, I might have said, "Do you want some more oatmeal?" from time to time. But 8 million extra words per year, or nearly 22,000 extra words per day, is a heck of a lot of oatmeal.
What kind of "professionals" are these talkative parents, anyway? Auctioneers? That's more than 1,800 words spoken during each of the 12 hours Izzy is awake each day. That's 30 words per minute. That's one word every other second. And these are extra words! How many words do the poor parents speak in the first place? I'm not even sure this can add up.
Although I do say "Isaac, stop pulling Walt's tail" many, many, many times each day.
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