Born Smart

14 month old children that communicate more with gestures have been found to have much larger vocabularies at age 4 and a half and are better prepared for school than children who did not. Researchers also found a correlation between social economic status (SES) and differences in gesture use of children. Professor Goldin-Meadow says, “Vocabulary is a key predictor of school success and is a primary reason why children from low-income families enter school at a greater risk of failure than their peers from advantaged families.”

We can speculate that the reason that the difference in children’s vocabulary also correlating with social economic status can possibly be for reasons such as;

mothers from lower income families may have to work and spend less time with their children,
other studies have also linked lower SES with higher intake of junk food
Parents form higher SES backgrounds where found to talk to their children more and in more complex sentences.

Although I agree with the result for this study, I think it’s important not to look towards one distinct parental behaviour as the cause for this anomaly. I believe it is more likely that a combination of factors increases a child’s vocabulary.

We should also include the following as possible reasons;

diet during pregnancy,

mother infant bonding, (the mother infant bond can influence baby’s learning enormously. A baby who spends less time crying is a baby that spends more time learning and a mother closely bonded to her baby will be able to read his cues better and in doing so help baby to develop non verbal communication).

diet after birth, (breast feeding and mother’s diet during breast feeding)

the child’s environment, (how many words he hears and how often he is spoken to).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212141145.htm