Today in our chat I talked a little about how children acquire vocabulary, and the importance of parents and caregivers sharing lots of spoken words, and as a consequence, vocaubulary with their children.

Here is an excerpt from the book/study where they talk about the effects of speaking a lot/not speaking much with your children. We have the book at my library, so if you're interested, you might wish to check at your Library, too.

I'll check it out. I'm curious to see what the results of this study were.

Interesting, CW. It certainly seems intuitive as a parent. I will never forget my shock when my oldest (now a lawyer, then 10 months) looked up at me when I was changing her diaper and said, "De-di-din?" Apparently whenever I changed her diaper I had said something like, "Now I have to put the Desitin on."

< not to say that my wife is a constant talker, but ... >

This article reports on the findings from a University of Chicago study that related parental gesturing to children having larger vocabularies. It was particularly interesting that those in higher income brackets seemed to gesture more. It would be hard to conclude that the gesturing is a reason for increased vocabulary, but it certainly could be factor. In another report on this study, the researchers surmised that gesturing may teach young children to communicate before their oral muscles develop.

I didn't understand, though, why those in lower income brackets would gesture less. Somehow gesturing, to me, doesn't relate to an income bracket. Any ideas?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Seems to me the common thread in these studies is that families of higher socio-eco status spend more time communicating in meaningful ways with their young children, and the more that happens, the greater the child's vocabulary will be. Whether it is simply words, words and gestures, baby sign language, or some variation of all three, it's the one-to-one, actual face-to-face communication which makes the most impact on the building of a child's vocabulary. This goes right in with the other research I've seen, although I am, admittedly, making some assumptions here.

Well, that certainly figures. Those in a higher socio-economic status often have an adult available, i.e. not working, to spend a great deal more 1-on-1 with the developing child/ infant. It would be interesting to see whether the same thing has held true in families where the infant has spent most language-development time in the company of a hired caregiver from a working-class family, i.e. an adult who was reared without the benefit of lots of 1-on-1 high-quality talking/ gesturing etc.

Kalleh, we have just been talking about gestures and language-learning on one of my foreign lang. teacher forums (the same study was mentioned). We had already been discussing a study which is targeted specifically at gesture, without any reference to socio-economic status. Certainly seems to support what FL teachers know anecdotally, that is: involving the body via specific gestures connected with specific phrases/ meanings tends to put the phrase into long-term memory & make it more easily retrieved as well (when the gesture is used again). Here's the link: Simple Gesturing Helps Students Learn

Yes, I agree with both of you about the level of communication. However, every report of that study that I read (and there are lots on the Web, including one from the BBC) seemed to indicate that people in higher socioeconomic brackets gesture more. I just don't agree with that. Gesturing seems more cultural than anything. People from Italy and Israel tend to gesture more than those from other cultures. Are their kids smarter? I don't think so.