parents' chats with their toddlers pay off 10 years later

Parents' chats with their toddlers pay off 10 years later

A study published this week in Pediatrics found that toddlers with parents who spend lots of time listening and chatting with them are more likely to have better language skills and higher IQs a decade later than youngsters left hanging in silence. 

"If you knew that children who were fed a certain nutritional diet at age two were not only far healthier as toddlers, but much more likely to be in a healthy weight range at age 12, you'd want to pursue those findings, wouldn't you?" said study author Jill Gilkerson, senior director of research and evaluation at the LENA Foundation, a non-profit charity in Boulder, Col. 

"Conversational turns are that diet, that nutrition, for the brain."

Researchers analyzed more than 9,000 hours of transcribed day-long recordings from 146 Denver-area children ages two months to four years old, and their parents. The children had followup tests of their language skills and cognitive abilities, such as working memory and reasoning, between ages nine and 14.

That's actually really cool

It’s almost like we’re all products of our inputs ;)

A study published this week in Pediatrics found that toddlers with parents who spend lots of time listening and chatting with them are more likely to have better language skills and higher IQs a decade later than youngsters left hanging in silence. 

I don't know ... anyone else thinking that this is yet another statement of the bleeding obvious? Seems like nobody trusts anything these days without it being confirmed by "a study".

Well, language skill is one thing. But IQ is another. In some circles there is a belief that IQ is some magical number which is written in stone and cannot be altered.

Myself, I consider that IQ is 'that quantity which is measured by IQ Tests', and that through practice at doing such tests, the related skills can be developed, it isn't fixed.

Development in young children is an area in its own right of course. There have been some enthusiastic parents who taught their youngsters alphabet and number skills before they could even sit up, followed by advanced studies at a young age. The problem though was a lack of balance, a lack of normal play and relaxation eventually had negative consequences of their own.