As I was beginning to read this chapter, I decided to glance through the rest of the book to see what was left. Imagine my surprise when I realized that right after this chapter came "Conclusion." What? There were still about one quarter of the pages to go! Then I just felt chagrin as I realized there were pages of notes that I had never even looked at! (Not feeling so intellectual at the moment.) And then, of course, the "Selected Sources and References" (which I had expected!) So it does indeed, appear, that we will be finishing Nurture Shock this week!
Despite scientists' admonitions, parents still spend billions every year on gimmicks and videos, hoping to jump-start infants' language skills. What's the right way to accomplish this goal?
Seems like it was relatively recently that all the hubbub about the Baby Einstein DVDs was occurring, yet it was over two years ago. But that is where this latest chapter of Nurture Shockstarts. The study that brought this all up was actually a follow-up to an earlier study that was determining why parents were having their babies watch TV. Contrary to the thought that it was babysitting, there were a significant number of parents who were doing this to give their babies a cognitive edge. Because of this, a second study was conducted to quantify the actual impact of this specific media exposure. You will likely recall that the findings showed that the more the children watched, the worse their vocabulary was. This was not to say that watching these types of DVDs was hurting the children, but it definitely wasn't doing what the parents thought it was doing. The study also showed that babies benefited more from a live human speaker than a voiceover on an audio track. Lip-reading is an important piece for babies learning to speak. Seeing a face, moving lips, and being able to hear and see when a word begins and ends are all critical. In fact, even in adults, this is important: seeing someone's lips as they are speaking is equivalent to a 20 decibel increase in volume!
When polled, most parents knew that a word-rich environment was helpful to a baby's developing language skills. (Believe it or not, there is actually something called a "verbal pedometer" that can be placed near or on your baby to count the number of words that your child hears each day! Yikes!) Research has shown that the more words that babies hear, the greater their language acquisition will be. However, new research has shown that the information flow that truly matters is not what parents put in to their child, but what is coming out of their baby. Dr. Catherine Tamis-LeMonda found that when parents immediately responded to a baby's vocalizations, these children were six months ahead of their peers in their language skills. Further studies by Dr. Michael Goldstein showed an increase in the type of vocalizations when parents were actually coaxed to respond (sometimes with touch, sometimes with words) to their baby. According to Po Bronson, one of the authors who actually witnessed and heard a mother and baby do this, "To my ear, it was stunning--the children literally sounded five months older, during the second ten-minute period, than they had in the first." Goldstein warns parents about overdoing this, however, and reminds them about the importance of play time as a means of learning as well.
To many parents, verbal skills and reading skills seem to be innate, but GOldstein says, "When parents see development in their kids, they are only seeing the output--not the mechanisms underneath. We just see significant changes, so parents tend to say 'It must be built in.' I don't think people are aware of what they are bringing to babies." One study comparing identical and fraternal twins showed that genetic factors are only about 25% of language acquisition. One researcher, when talking about the differences in being an early- or late-developer says, "The only thing typical about typical language development was variability." Tamis-LeMonda agrees and says that "sometimes a kid who seems to catch up wasn't actually behind in the first place; their receptive vocabulary was proceeding apace, but they weren't talking much because they were shy or didn't have the motor control yet." Her words conclude the chapter: "It's important to characterize early language precocity for what it is: a head start, but far from a guarantee. It's not lie the infancy period is the only critical period. New skills are emerging in every period, and vocabulary development has to continually expand."
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