Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain

(Note: some part of this post is direct copy-paste from the original book.)

Source: Amazon

Connections:

Dr. Dana Suskund (author of the book): is a Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UChicago Medicine) and a pediatric cochlear implant surgeon. Suskind specializes in early childhood development, and has conducted research on parents and caregivers’ capacities to drive foundational brain development for children ages birth to three, particularly those born into poverty.

The Susans (Professor Susan Levine and Professor Susan Goldin-Meadow): are University of Chicago professors of psychology. They have been working together, around 40 years, to understand how children learn language.

Betty Hart and Todd Risley: are child psychologists who wanted to figure out how to enhance academic success of children from low-income families. They showed us the importance of language environment at an early age of children: the quantity and the quality of the words heard by a child, beginning from the birth till 3 years old, can express the disparities in ultimate educational achievement.

Anne Fernald: is an American psychologist. She serves as the Josephine Knotts Knowles Professor in Human Biology at Stanford University and has been described as “the leading researcher in infant-directed speech”.

Carol Dweck: is a psychology Professor at Stanford and the author of the book: “Mindset: The Psychology of Success”.

Neuroplasticity: the ability for the brain to develop with new stimuli.

LENA — Language Environment Analysis System: small digital audio recorder that fits snugly into the pocket of a child’s T-shirt. Recorded audio can be processed make an analysis.

Photo by Alyssa Stevenson on Unsplash

• By the end of age three, the human brain (which has 100 Billion neuron) completes about 85% of its physical growth. This, at the same time, represents the same time period of thinking and learning development. Scientific researches show us the development of the brain is related to the language environment of the young child.
• Neuroplasticity for learning language may occur, to some extend, at all ages. However, it is integral to the child’s brain from birth through 3–4 years of age.
• “A rich language environment is like a oxygen. You would not get its importance until you see someone who could not gain enough that oxygen.” — Nim Tottenham.

1. The First Word: The pioneers of parent talk

• Hart and Risley developed a novel preschool program aimed to enhance the academic potential of children by intensify their vocabulary. But it failed, i.e. increasing the vocabulary of preschool children did not help them to learn better than the children who didn’t go to the preschool. This was unexpected results, because Hart and Risley were almost sure that increasing the vocabulary would help children’s academic potential. They were seeking for the answer; “why it failed?”…
• The following video, from 1960s, is about their project — Juniper Gardens Children’s Project:

• To understand the reason of their project’s failure, they kept doing a research. 42 families from different socioeconomic strata (SES) participated their research: 13 from high-SES, 10 from mid-SES and 13 from low-SES and 6 welfare families. Children of these families followed from 9 months to 3 years age. After three years of detailed observation and an additional three years of data analysis, Hart and Risley were ready to formulate the analysis results.
• In an hour, the high-SES families were responding to their children 250 times in an hour; the low-SES families were responding to their children 50 times in an hour. Here is the table showing the average number of words heard by children from different SES:

• Although, there were academic potential differences between different SES family children, that was not the actual reason. The essential factor was how much and how their parents talked to them. Children, whose parents were talking a lot, no matter the educational or economic status, were more successful.
• Words, how many words we heard and how they pronounced, are determining factors in brain development.
• Imperatives and prohibitions are yet another factors which affect the child’s ability to acquire language.
• There are three different characteristics of interactions, regardless of SES, between a child and parent: 1. symbol-infused joint attention (both mother and child use meaningful words and gestures as they share an activity), 2. communication fluency and connectedness (the flow of interaction that connects a mother and child), 3. routines and rituals (for example, “my turn, now your turn” play or structured daily events such as meals and bedtime).
• There is another very important factor; affirmations (“you’re good, you’re right!”) and prohibitions (“you’re bad, you’re wrong!”):

2. Neuroplasticity: riding the revolutionary wave in brain science

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind. — Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

• Anne Fernald’s research underlines the importance of early language environment on the speed of language processing.
• The brain, unlike almost all other organs, is unfinished at birth. During the several years (relatively small amount of time) after the birth, the brain circuit (which is very powerful and sensitive) is generated which will affect lifetime attainment.
• In addition to the food needed for our physical growth, there is an equivalent need for optimum social nutrition to ensure intellectual growth. And one of the most important of this social nutrition is the continuity/stability.
• When the levels of stress are consistent, “stress hormones” bathe a baby’s brain, forever changing its structure. Baby’s relationship with caring and responsive adult is at the center of brain development.
• Each of us is born with the potential of 100 Billion neurons. However, without critical neural connections, these 100 Billion neurons are kind of meaningless.
• From birth through about 3 years of age, in baby’s brain, 700-to-1000 additional neural connections are created in every second.
• Baby needs something to look at to be able to learn “seeing”.
• Brain development is realized in a hierarchical manner; “basic” abilities provide the foundation on which the more “complex” ones are built.
• Do not undervalue the importance of “baby talk” to your baby. Contrary to what is known, “baby talk” actually helps the baby statistician’s brain to more easily grasp sounds that are clearly distinct from others.

3. The power of parent talk: from language to an outlook on life.

• Parent talk is the an incredible power which helps the brain to reach its optimum intelligence and stability.
• The connectome: is a comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain.
• Babies come into this world with innate, non-verbal “number sense” and ability to “guesstimate” the relative number of things. When we play “tuu tuu tuu tuu” game with newborn babies, they would look longer at the picture with 4 squares. Likewise, if we play 12 syllables game, then they tend to look at the picture with 12 squares longer.
• Yet another important think in parent-child interaction is, in addition to the quality and the quantity of words, to use the number of maths related words. Obviously, the baby who have heard more math-related words would be better at matching the spoken numbers with the quantity of dots in the paper.
• Parents’ “spatial talk” (a talk related to spatial ability) — size and shapes of objects, i.e. circle, square, bigger, smaller, closer, tall, short, etc — affect’s child’s understanding of the spatial relationships between objects.
• According to Carol Dweck, instead of instilling a sense of the absolutes in abilities, parents must engender the sense that effort is the pivotal factor in achievement. The primer reason of lack of success is the giving up, not a lack of ability.
• If praise is not handled properly, it can become a negative force which makes the children passive and dependent on others opinion rather than strengthening them. Instead of just praise, it is better to teach the children being gritty — “If I try further, I will get better” — so that they will become less vulnerable to failures and become more determined.
• “fixed” versus “growth” mindset: “fixed” mindset believes that skills are absolute and can not be changes, whereas, “growth” mindset believes in intelligence can be enhanced by challenges.
• Research studies showed that praise for “effort” (process-based praise) had larger effect on children’s “growth mindset” compared to praise for “smartness” (person-based praise).
• Bilingual children have an advantage over children speaking the single language because knowing two languages help to rearrange their mind properly. Very important point here is the child should learn the language from native speakers only!

4. The three T’s: setting the stage for optimum brain development.

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein

• Babies aren’t born smart; they’re made smart by parents talking to them. Child’s intelligence is not set at birth but is very dependent, for optimum development, on the language they have provided.
• Prepare an environment in order to optimize the benefits for the children. Core strategy for this is Three Ts: Tune In, Talk More, and Take Turns.

The First T: Tune In

• Notice what a baby or child is focused on, then, talking with the child about it. If parent is not Tuned In, the other Ts will not work.
• Parents better to learn to be aware of what their child is doing, then to become part of it, enhancing the relationship, helping to improve the skills being used in play and, through the ensuing verbal interaction, helping develop their child’s brain.
• Digital distractions (computers, tablets, and smart phones) are addictive and attention absorbing and “Tuning In” is deterred by them.
• Child-directed speech (baby talk): helps a baby’s brain learn the language. A key feature of child-directed speech is repetition.
• Parental responsiveness, the essense of Yuning In, boils down to a three-step process: observation, interpretation, and action.

The second T: Talk More

• Talk More, which goes hand in hand with Tune In, refers to a parent’s increased talking with a child, especially about what the child is focusing on, not to him or her. Talking More with a child requires a mutual level of engagement between the child and the parent.
• Narration: narrating what you are doing, while you are doing it, helps baby’s brain to develop better: increases the vocabulary, shows relationship between a sound/word, and the act or thing it pertains to.
• Parallel Talk: is a commentary on what the child is doing. Establishing eye contact, talking about the things in the immediate environment and allowing the child to absorb both language and warmth could be one of the best parallel talk.
• Take “It” Away: labels (“house”, “car”, “road”, “pizza”, etc) are very important for both vocabulary building and understanding for the yougng child. For example, instead of saying “I love it!”, you could say “I love your drawing!”. Every label is another word, understanding.

The third T: Take Turns

• Active engagement between the parent and child is necessary for conversational interaction to be succesful. This could be achieved by Tuning In to what the child is focused on and Talking More about it. The key is for the parent to wait for the child to respond — Take Turns.
• Allowing the child a little extra time to retrieve words (in order to respond the parent) can be the difference between continuing Taking Turns and ending it. While Taking Turn conversation, parents should aim to help child to learn anything new or retrieve some difficult words. Try not to ask “What” questions (“What color is the ball”) which may have very simple answer (“red”) or any other question which could be answered by simple “yes”/“no”. On the contrary “Why?”, “How” questions allow a child to start thinking process, hence, eventually, to the skill of problem solving.

Three Ts and Book Reading. Reading with a child from the first day of life develops literacy skills and a love of books way before the child has the ability to read.

• Book sharing: TMW approach which is based on a approach where a child reads book and parent becomes more of an audience.
• Turn In — While reading a book together, parents pay attention which part of the book grab the child’s attention.
• Talking More — talking more about what’s going on in the story, what this might lead to, how it affect’s the characters gives the story greater meaning in the child’s mind.
• Research has demonstrated a clear link between parents’ oral narrative activities and their children’s later language skills and readiness for school.

Math And The Three Ts. Being able to recognize patterns helps a child develop problem-solving skills and the ability to make predictions.

• Cardinality: the number of elements in a set or other grouping, as a property of that grouping. Count the objects while performing Three T’s: Tune In, Talk More and Take Turns.
• Geometry: integral to learning geometry includes spatial reasoning (learning how shapes relate on another). Mastering spatial reasoning supports problem solving overall, serving as an important predictor of reading skills and later achievement in science, technology, engineering, and math fields.
• Measurement: after a child has developed a sense of attributes such as length, weight, and speed, measurement through the lens of comparison can be learned.
• Patterns: when children know what happens next (pattern in events), their brains can focus learning.

TMW and process-based praise. There are two types of praise:

1. Person-based praise — praising the child: “You are so smart.”
2. Process-based praise — praising the child’s effort: “You worked hard on that puzzle and you finished it. Great job!”

• Research shows that children who hear more process-based praise, who are praised for their effort, are less likely to give up when faced with a challenge, a persistence that will help them do better in school and in life.

TMW and self-regulation and executive function. Without strong executive function and self-regulation, intelligence is often fighting an exhausting uphill battle. Words can help parents to develop child’s executive function and self-regulation.

• An important way of nurturing self-regulation in children is by offering choices, i.e. not all decisions made by an adult.
• Directives and short commands are the least efficient method for brain building because they require little or no language in response. An alternative way is “because thinking” — explain why should a baby do something, what is the reasons and possible outcomes.
• Children’s brain learn best from social interaction.

5. The Social Consequences: where the science of neuroplasticity can take us

• Rich or poor, language environments are home and parent specific. It is simply matter of parents understanding the importance of the language environment and having accessible, readily available supports in place.
• “Nothing beats a failure except a try” — Threcia, Portia’s (executive director of Educare Learning Network) mother
• Along with the support of “growth mindset”, parents also need to be rear guards, making sure that any backsliding goes only so far without someone to stop it, i.e. encourage their children to fail and try again and again.
• Dr. Shonkoff — Professor of Child Health and Development at the Harvard says: “Transformational change requires entrepreneurial investments in science-based innovation, in addition to philanthropic support… While improving quality and increasing access to best practices remains critically important, some segment of the field needs support for creative experimentation, implementation, evaluation, and sharing of knowledge about what doesn’t work as well as what does…”
• A dual-generation approach: instead of focusing to only children’s or parents’ development/growth mindset, builds simultaneous educational, economic, health, and security foundations geared to the stability and enhanced lives of parents and their children.

5. Spreading the Words: the next step

“You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.” —attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

• In a country where a great number of children can not reach highest potentials, the country can not reach its highest potential either.
• The achievement gap seen in students in kindergarten through twelfth grade is apparent to anyone who looks at the statistics. However, from birth through three years is a relatively invisible period — the achievement gap is already present at nine months of age but is apparent only under the microscope of statistical analysis. We may believe that the problems we see in older children start at the moment we observe them. However, problems existent in children of school age were simply observable manifestations of much earlier problems.
• Nobel laureate James Heckman has found that every dollar invested in quality early childhood education for disadvantaged children delivers annual economic gains of 7% to 10% through increased school achievements, healthy behavior, and adult productivity.
• The health case system is a logical platform for teaching parents the importance of the early language environment.
• TMW’s ultimate goals are a universal appreciation for the need to improve the early language environments of children and a national (US) momentum for supporting the programs that will make it happen. Professionals, including early learning and child care workers, could be taught about the three Ts (Tune In, Talk More, and Take Turns) in training or online, helping them understand the critical importance of their language with the children in their care.
• Technology could help in many ways as well. A computer-based program for TMW program curriculum, embedded technology that could help measure the impact of various strategies so that techniques could be evaluated and honed.
• Too many of our children face a future of unreachable potentials, affecting them and the world in which they will live. Almost all parents can give their children the necessary language environment to build their children’s brains to optimum potential.
• If all parents understood that a word spoken to young child is not simply a word but a building block for that child’s brain, nurturing a stable, empathetic, intelligent adult, what a different world this would be.
• Let’s make sure that our children would match their potentials!

Additional readings:

• Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain Review and Takeaways
• Meaningful Differences, Betty Hart & Tod R. Risley
• “Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens” by Lisa Guernsey and Michael H. Levine
• “Unequal Childhoods” by Annette Lareau
• “Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs” by Ellen Galinsky
• “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness Paperback” by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.
• “Bridging the Early Language Gap: A Plan for Scaling Up”, D. Suskind et al.