Jul 20, 2021 09:00:00

Why does the difference between rich and poor create a 'language gap' of 30 million words in children?

'Language inequality' has been the focus of many researchers

since psychologists showed that the difference between rich and poor in childhood manifests itself as a difference in language vocabulary 30 years ago. New research results have been announced on what is the root cause of the 'language gap' that is thought to affect future academic performance and financial success.

PsyArXiv Preprints | What causes the word gap? Financial concerns may systematically suppress child-directed speech
https://psyarxiv.com/byp4k

Word gap: When money's tight, parents talk less to kids | Berkeley News
https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/16/word-gap-when-moneys-tight-parents-talk-less-to-kids/

In the 1990s, University of Kansas psychologists Dr. Betti Hart and Dr. Todd Lisley compared children raised in the rich and the poor, and found that by the age of four, the number of words they received was that of the rich. It turns out that the average number of poor children is 30 million less than that of children. It was thought that the lack of language exposure in childhood affected language proficiency at school, academic performance thereafter, and future financial success. In 2018, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced research results that 'it is not the number of words that matters, but the number of conversation responses.'

And to support the relationship between poverty and language, a new research team at the University of California, Berkeley published a study that says, 'Parents stop talking to their children when they can't afford it.'

In this study, the 84 parents who were the subjects were first divided into a 'group asked about the latest financial shortage' and a 'group asked about anxiety and deficiency other than financial matters', and each parent was asked after the question time. It was observed how to interact with the child. All the children who participated in the experiment were 3 years old. As a result, parents asked about financial shortages talked less to their children than parents asked about other 'non-financial anxieties and deficiencies.'

Next, the research team attached a device to record conversations to children, recorded conversations between parents and children, and counted the number of words exchanged. Observing how conversation patterns change over a period of one month, we found that at the end of the month before the payday, when the family's financial margins were low, there was less conversation between parents and children than during other periods. Was shown. Dr. Monica Elwood Rowe, the lead author of the study, said, 'Parents' speech patterns differ only in'whether they are financially imminent'regardless of their personal qualities.' I am.

The results of this study are small and still in the preliminary research stage, but it shows that the root of the language gap may be the phenomenon that 'parental utterances decrease when financially imminent'. .. 'The results of this study do not show that'children of financially deprived parents are destined to have less vocabulary.'The lesson here is that parents have the resources to raise their children. It's important, 'said Dr. Elwood Rowe.