Welfare to word

Joanne Jacobs has a post today on The Word Gap:

By the age of three, the child of educated parents has heard 30 million more words than the child of welfare parents, according to a study that taped parents and children over a 2 1/2-year period. By the age of three, the children of professionals were using more words in their conversation than the welfare parents.

Furthermore, the poor children heard mostly discouraging words, while the average child in a professional family heard encouragement by a 6 to 1 ratio.

Posted by David on April 14, 2003 6:13 PM