Talking ROI

Just read an interesting statistic - "Talkative" parents spoke 2,100 words per hour on average to their infant - an estimated 48 million words in the infant's first 30 months.   The research from "Disrupting Class" studied the effects of how parents talk to a child in the first two and a half years of life.  A disadvantaged child hears only 13 million from their parents.

Also significant, is the type of language - business language (simple, direct, declarative) was not as effective in cognitive development as "language dancing" (chatty, thinking aloud, commenting on the child's actions, describing plans, asking questions, expecting understanding). 

And the effect of 48 million dancing words?  Incalculable cognitive advantage - not income, ethnicity, or parents' education.  A child who enters school with a strong vocabulary is likely to do well in school early on.

Remember the rules of talking -  Return on Investment (ROI).

Talking more/language dancing to infants yields high ROI for society - dance with the infants
Talking more (and not listening) to adults yields low ROI for society - listen and learn