066: Is the 30 Million Word Gap real?
b'You all know that on the show we pretty much steer clear of the clickbait articles that try to convince you that something is wrong with your child, in favor of getting a balanced view of the overall body of literature on a topic.\\nBut every once in a while a study comes along and I think \\u201cwe really MUST learn more about that, even though it muddies the water a bit and leads us more toward confusion than a clear picture.\\u201d\\nThis is one of those studies. We\\u2019ll learn about the original Hart and Risley study that identified the \\u201c30 Million Word Gap\\u201d that so much policy has been based on since then, and what are the holes in that research (e.g. did you know that SIX African American families on welfare in that study are used as proxies for all poor families in the U.S., only 25% of whom are African American?).\\nThen, Dr. Doug Sperry will tell us about his research, which leads him to believe that overheard language can also make a meaningful contribution to children\\u2019s vocabulary development.\\nI do want to be 100% clear on one point: Dr. Sperry says very clearly that he believes parents speaking with children is important for their development; just that overheard language can contribute as well.\\nAnd this is not Dr. Sperry out on his own criticizing research that everyone else agrees with: if you\\u2019re interested, there are a host of other issues http://www.idra.org/resource-center/differences-as-deficiencies/ (listed here).\\nThe overarching problem, of course, is that our school system is so inflexible that linguistic skills \\u2013 even really incredible ones of the type we discussed in our https://yourparentingmojo.com/storytelling/ (recent episode on storytelling) \\u2013 have no place in the classroom if they don\\u2019t mesh with the way that White, middle-class families (and, by extension, teachers and students) communicate.\\nBut that will have to be an episode for another day.\\n\\nReferences\\nAdair, J. K., Colegrove, K. S-S., and McManus, M. E. (2017). How the word gap argument negatively impacts young children of Latinx Immigrants\\u2019 conceptualizations of learning. Harvard Educational Review, 87(3), 309-334.\\nAkhtar, N., and Gernsbacher, M.A. (2007). Joint attention and vocabulary development: A critical look. Language and Linguistic Compass 1(3), 195-207.\\nCallanan, M., and Waxman, S. (2013). Commentary on special section: Deficit or difference? Interpreting diverse developmental paths. Developmental Psychology 49(1), 80-83.\\nDennett, D. (1995). Darwin\\u2019s dangerous idea: Evolution and the meaning of life. New York, NY: Touchstone.\\nDudley-Marling, C., and Lucas, K. (2009). Pathologizing the language and culture of poor children. Language Arts 86(5), 362-370.\\nGee, J.P. (1985). The narrativization of experience in the oral style. Journal of Education 167(1), 9-57.\\nGenishi, C., and Dyson, A. H. (2009). Children, language, and literacy: Diverse learners in diverse times. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.\\nHoff, E. (2013). Interpreting the early language trajectories of children from low-SES and language minority homes: Implications for closing achievement gaps. Developmental Psychology 49(1), 4-14.\\nJohnson, E.J. (2015). Debunking the \\u201clanguage gap.\\u201d Journal for Multicultural Education 9(1), 42-50.\\nMiller, P.J., and Sperry, D.E. (2012). D\\xe9j\\xe0 vu: The continuing misrecognition of low-income children\\u2019s verbal abilities. In S.T. Fiske and H.R. Markus (Eds.), Facing social class: How societal rank influences interaction (pp.109-130). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.\\nSperry, D.E., Sperry, L.L., and Miller, P.J. (2018). Reexamining the verbal environments of children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Child Development (Early online publication). Full article available at: <a href="https://www.researchgate.'