
Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation - kumarski
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/children_s_language_development_talk_and_listen_to_them_from_birth.html
======
electrograv
Saying "Children aren't born smart" is equivalent to saying "Intelligence is
determined entirely by one's environment", if I understand the claim
correctly. While I'm sure talking to ones children contributes in a massively
positive way to their IQ, I think it's extremely inaccurate and ignorant to
the existence of real-world outliers to claim that it's the only factor.

To provide just one example (out of many, I'm sure): I was born into a very
poor (far below poverty level) working class family that was extremely techno-
phobic. Despite being actively discouraged almost throughout my childhood of
pursuing an intellectual career, I always had an intrinsic motivation and
desire to learn and create tech-related things. This ultimately lead to where
I am now, as a software engineer (and I'm definitely the only one like this
from my family, a clear outlier).

To this day I can't come up with a single environmental influence that
explains this -- and believe me, I've tried. I don't mean for this example to
detract from the positive message of the article -- that talking to children
is very beneficial to their cognitive development (obviously) -- but hopefully
to demonstrate that it's a lot more complex than just environmental factors.

~~~
xenophanes
You claim to "demonstrate that it's a lot more complex than just environmental
factors". But the correct conclusion from what you said is that you
demonstrated that it's a lot more complex than just the environmental factors
that you thought of.

You seem to be concluding genetic factors ("always had an intrinsic
motivation"). But "not all environment" does not imply "some genetics", that
is a false alternative.

There are more possible factors than just environment and genetics. One is
human choice (sometimes called "free will", but that term has a lot of
baggage). I do not agree with the perspective of attributing everything to
factors, rather than a person's own choices.

Genetics certainly have a role in some sense. If you had different genes, you
would have been a cat instead of human, and would not have the brain to be a
software engineer.

But the general idea that life is very complicated, and the results of people
in similar situations vary -- true so far -- simply does not imply (partial)
genetic determinism. "Environment", or more generally alternatives to genetic
determinism, is/are very subtle and complex. The world is vastly complicated,
"environment" refers to a million factors most of which no one documents.

You had, in many respects, a different life and environment than anyone else
had. Everyone has a unique environment at high precision. So whatever result
you get, what would that prove?

You wonder how a person with several factors against them could be intelligent
and successful? You can't think of any ways, besides genetics? There are a
million ways. Poverty, non-wonderful discouraging parents, poor teachers, and
whatever else are not one's whole life. You met many people, some more helpful
than that. You read some books. Even just an ordered list of what books you
read up to age 20 might be unique.

People don't start the same, but even if they did, things would quickly
branch, again and again. 30 identical students sit in a classroom. The teacher
explains something. By sheer randomness, if nothing else, some students
understand it today, and some do not understand it yet. Then the next day the
teacher gives a second lecture. Everyone hears "the same" lecture, but they
have different situations (having understood or not understood yesterday's
lesson), so different students experience "the same lecture" in different ways
due to their different situations and perspectives. Similarly, in general,
people in "the same environment" are not actually having the same experiences.

~~~
electrograv
Are you claiming people are solely the product of their environment? There is
substantial scientific evidence to the contrary.

Keep in mind I'm not saying it's a deterministic inherited thing (it's clearly
not). However I believe there is strong evidence that everyone is born with a
unique personality and potential. An "environmental chaos theory" does not do
justice to unexplained outliers, those with recognized mind-affecting genetic
conditions, and many other real-world scenarios.

My situation is even more unusual than you realize. I didn't even meet many
people while growing up; throughout my childhood I was almost entirely
separated from the outside world (lived secluded in the mountains). Almost no
neighbors near by. I never went to public school. Extremely protective parents
did not allow us to ever talk to strangers. All this is the same case for my
siblings, yet they have no desire to pursue technology, while I do.

Note that by no means am I trying to downplay the importance of environment.
I'm simply trying to illustrate that the claim "environment determines 100% of
someone's mental and personality development" is empirically wrong.

~~~
derivagral
> Are you claiming people are solely the product of their environment? There
> is substantial scientific evidence to the contrary.

I'm genuinely interested in what/where this is, any links / searches?

~~~
bradleyland
This debate is commonly referred to as the nature versus nurture debate:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=intelligenc+nature+vs+nurtur...](https://www.google.com/search?q=intelligenc+nature+vs+nurture)

It's a vigorous and deep debate. Happy reading!

~~~
niels_olson
Which is right up there with the abortion debate. In the vast, vast majority
of actual cases, you find relatively little disagreement. Rare edge cases,
however, ignite incendiary reactions from both sides.

As a pathologist and father, I'm 100% confident there are very good reasons
for electing to abort in a variety of circumstances, not all related to the
fetus or mother, though there is little reason to rejoice in any of them.

Similarly, I am 100% certain that human development is part genetics, and part
environment. But we can't control our genetics. So I don't worry about that
much. Maybe there's some fascinating biology discovered every few years, but I
can learn good lessons from observing other parents every day.

Maybe that's a good way to frame the environment issue: if you really don't
believe environment matters, then ask yourself, should you have kids so you
have someone to take your frustrations out on?

------
pg
I don't know whether this is true, but it feels true, and I've been operating
as if it were.

~~~
clarkm
You're right -- it feels true, which probably explains why it has so much
staying power. Though the idea has been around for decades, it was really
popularized by Hart and Risley in the 90s. However, it has been popping even
more frequently over the past couple years.

A few months ago, when a similar article ran in the New York Times, Steven
Pinked opined:

> The Blank Slate lives: Yet another story on parent-child correlations that
> dares not mention the g-word

[https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/322367630331740160](https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/322367630331740160)

~~~
zizee
It's weird how people are happy to say genetics plays a hand in the limits of
human abilities, but when it comes to talk about intelligence, there are so
many people in denial.

Perhaps it is just that you can't sell as many self help books if a lot of our
brain's wiring is preordained.

~~~
smtddr
What you call "denial", I call reasonable doubt. And by that, I mean we don't
have any concrete way to measure intelligence potential/capacity in the same
way we can measure 12 inches. We know what 12 inches mean, but can anyone tell
me what it means to be smart? What subjects do I need to learn to qualify? And
to what level of detail? Why do we conclude Stephen Hawkins is smart? Who is
an example of someone that isn't smart and could never become smart no matter
how hard that person tried? Barring any serious mental illness, I am of the
belief anyone can learn whatever they want. The speed may vary, but I don't
believe there is more information in the human-society than the human brain
can contain.

~~~
Kudzu_Bob
We do have concrete ways to measure intelligence, and have had them for over a
hundred years. The literature on this subject is quite extensive.

~~~
lutusp
> We do have concrete ways to measure intelligence, and have had them for over
> a hundred years.

Concrete, yes. Accurate, absolutely not. Any number of people have exploited
the systematic errors in I.Q. testing for purely racist and political
objectives.

> The literature on this subject is quite extensive.

Indeed it is:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man)

~~~
Kudzu_Bob
Gould has been exposed as a fraud.

~~~
lutusp
Citation needed.

~~~
clarkm
Interesting how you never bothered to ask that while reading the fraudulent
book itself.

It's like skimming a poorly-researched paper on vaccines, taking it as gospel,
proceeding to claim that they cause autism, and yet reflexively responding
with "citation needed" to anyone that dare call into question your insane
ideas.

~~~
lutusp
> Interesting how you never bothered to ask that while reading the fraudulent
> book itself.

This is your evidence that Gould is a fraud? Nice dodge, but scientists and
educated people will notice you avoided your responsibility to back up your
words with evidence.

------
r0h1n
Father of a 3.5 year old brought up using tons of "targeted talking" here: our
son has a vocabulary and logical comprehension skills that are significantly
beyond his peer group. As a result I'd noticed in the past that he prefers
engaging with other adults in conversation over kids his age.

Yesterday was his first PTA meeting and the feedback from his teacher seemed
to confirm it too. She narrated an incident when the class was being told
about rocket firecracker that light Indian skies during the Diwali festival
and our son was explaining to her why a rocket goes up ("it burns gunpowder"),
or why it stops after a while ("the gunpowder runs out") and then why it falls
back to earth ("gravity"). The rest of his class was more fascinated with the
talk about firecrackers.

Her nuanced point was that our son tends to get ahead of ideas and actions by
engaging in a to-and-fro conversation about the logic/explanation behind them,
thus at times preventing him from enjoying or taking in the idea or action
itself or talking with other kids his age.

One of her suggestions was to "explain less" and let our son figure out things
on his own (easier said than done, because he's extremely inquisitive and
persistent).

The larger point I'm trying to make is that high vocabulary can also act as a
barrier in kids engaging with others their age. The article also hints at it,
in a manner:

> Newell is proud that her daughter can spell her first and last names, recite
> her address and phone number, recognize and spell colors, and count to 200.
> She’s also frustrated that more of Alona’s peers can’t do the same.

~~~
jorleif
Could the teachers statement be rephrased in terms that the kid is developing
analytical skills so quickly that they are dominating over the more
"experiential" part of socializing with others? It seems that this kind of
thing persists into adulthood, because I notice that it is hard to experience
and analyze at the same time. For example, it is hard to read a book to
experience the story and analyze the narrative structure at the same time. A
similar point is described in "Gödel, Escher, Bach" that one can either listen
to a musical piece as a whole (experientally) or as individual pieces, such as
notes (analytically), but not both at the same time.

While I tend to think analytical skills are more important, it is probably not
good to entirely neglect the skills to experience and "live in the moment"
either, since that seems to be the foundation of many social skills.

~~~
r0h1n
That's very well put and I tend to agree with it.

------
wallflower
> I recently stopped to congratulate a young mother pushing her toddler in a
> stroller. The woman had been talking to her barely verbal daughter all the
> way up the block, pointing out things they had passed, asking questions like
> "What color are those flowers?" and talking about what they would do when
> they got to the park. This is a rare occurrence in my Brooklyn neighborhood,
> I told her. All too often, the mothers and nannies I see are tuned in to
> their cellphones, BlackBerrys and iPods, not their young children.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/29brod.html?ref=sci...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/29brod.html?ref=science)

------
schoper
Except for deaf children, who seem to fall along the same IQ distribution as
hearing children. And rich children seem to inherit their parents IQs instead
of their Guatemalan nannies' IQs.

But feel free to go on believing that genes don't do anything. God just must
have created everyone equal.

~~~
clarkm
That's actually not true -- congenital deaf children average almost a standard
dev below average on IQ tests. However, your overall point still stands, as
non-deaf children of deaf parents do just fine.

~~~
ordinary
Conversation need not be audio-based.

------
ianb
I am disappointed when I hear the term "socio-economic factors" in discussions
of education. First, as if "economic" wasn't enough you add in "socio" to
create a term that means "factors coming from every part of a person's life".
Of course there are socio-economic factors.

But I dislike it particularly because often it feels like a statement: we
don't know what the causes are (which is why we make the weakest possible
claim by using this incredibly expansive category), and we aren't going to try
to find out.

So I particularly appreciate this program, and the research it is based upon.
We have a pretty well identified phenomena: talking a lot to kids, at a young
age, helps them. A lot. And some people talk to their kids a lot more than
other people. We should delight in this finding! We have a pretty clear way to
identify a lot of kids whose lives could be greatly improved through changes
in their parents' behavior, and that change is widely accessible.

It's this kind of finding that penetrates "socio-economic factors" and in the
process identifies something actionable.

~~~
ballard
Some of the best hackers &| hustlers I know come from average to slightly-
below average backgrounds. The biggest challenge for anyone, given any
background, is what they tell themselves they can't do.

In addition to talking, it's important that the parent is a decent human-
being. An awful person interacting with a kid probably does more harm than
good. I don't think there's much correlation with decency and socioeconomics.

\--

"Give me guys that are poor, smart, and hungry and no feelings." \- Gordon
Gekko

~~~
Kudzu_Bob
When you say that some of the best hacker and hustlers that you know come from
unimpressive backgrounds, does "some" mean "most" or "a few" or "hardly any"?

------
fiatmoney
Despite the fact that it may be "well established within academic circles",
there is no actual evidence for the contention of the article - even within
the article. In particular, for the study they mention, "The full results
haven’t been published yet". It's no more than wishful thinking and a
convenient hypothesis.

------
ChuckMcM
Solid parenting advice, #1 talk to your children even when they cannot talk,
#2 read _new_ books to your children every week. You can always re-read
favorites but just keep the new books coming. And then combine #1 and #2 and
talk to your children about the books you read.

There is an excellent Radiolab podcast on "Colors" [1] which has (for me) the
fairly stunning revelation that you can't see a color you can't name. It
starts by looking at the colors used in ancient texts and works its way
forward. Some women have more cones than normal and are tetrachromatic so they
can see more colors than the normal trichromatic human. But until you name the
new colors apparently you can't see them (or recognize them).

People seem to need words to organize their thoughts and reason about things
they see or read. The more words you give them, the better able they are to
reason.

[1]
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/)

~~~
lutusp
> There is an excellent Radiolab podcast on "Colors" [1] which has (for me)
> the fairly stunning revelation that _you can 't see a color you can't name_.
> [emphasis added]

Interesting idea, but untestable, therefore unscientific. Do you see why? A
color we can't name isn't open to systematic investigation. If we try to get
around this by asking a subject to compare the "unseen" color to a color
patch, we're only given the "unseeable" color a name by proxy.

This kind of claim is very commonly made by people who don't understand
science.

> People seem to need words to organize their thoughts and reason about things
> they see or read.

This argues that animals lacking language also lack the ability to think.
Copious evidence disproves this idea. Video of a raven using tools to achieve
a purpose:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41Z6Mvjd9w0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41Z6Mvjd9w0)

> The more words you give them, the better able they are to reason.

The better able to reason _with words_. This is self-referential in the
extreme.

~~~
snowwrestler
The point is that "color" does not physically exist[1], it is a construct of
human perception and language. Thus you cannot scientifically study color at
all--if you try, what you are actually studying is human perception and
language.

This is not an unscientific concept, because human perception and language are
naturally occurring, albeit incredibly complex, phenomena.

Animals do not see colors, they react to physical phenomena including photons.
Humans use the concept of color to describe what animals do.

Certain animals who learn human language can communicate with us about color.
That doesn't mean they can't think, it just means that color is a human
construct so they need human language to reason about it.

[1] What physically exists are photons across a range of frequencies, but
that's not the same thing as color.

~~~
lutusp
> Animals do not see colors, they react to physical phenomena including
> photons.

Come on. This is a roundabout way to try to define animals in terms of what
they don't have -- not color perception, which many animals have, but words to
describe the colors.

Of course animals see colors, in the most basic biological sense. Many see
colors more efficiently than we do, indeed see more colors, colors we can
neither imagine nor name.

> ... it just means that color is a human construct so they need human
> language to reason about it.

Believe me when I tell you, animals don't need us to tell them how to reason
about color. Why do you think the Peppered Moth changed color over a period of
150 years? It was the only way the species could survive their changing
environment and the acute visual sense of their predators.

> What physically exists are photons across a range of frequencies, but that's
> not the same thing as color.

No, what we call "color" or "color perception" is the biological sensing of
electromagnetic energy, which many animals have. So, since we and animals have
color perception, and since some animals do it better than we do, the argument
has no substance.

While we're on the topic, here are my favorite colors:

* Unforeseeable fuchsia, the color you never see coming.

* Statutory grape, the color of a dress worn by a 13-year-old girl.

~~~
snowwrestler
You're basically doing what I said people do, which is to use color to
describe how animals act. That does not mean that color, as a concept, has any
meaning in the mind of an animal.

The electromagnetic spectrum is continuous; our concept of color is a
completely arbitrary way of dividing it[1] up into sections. That was the
point of the Radiolab episode (and a lot of academic research before it):
different human cultures divide up the electromagnetic spectrum in different
ways, each of which is as valid as another.

Animals might not have this concept at all; for example it would be just as
physically valid to think of the electromagnetic spectrum the way we think
about sound--as a continous spectrum from "quiet" to "loud". We know that
divisions are arbitrary when it comes to sound--that's why the "this amp goes
to 11" joke in Spinal Tap is funny.

[1] Edit to add: only a tiny portion of it

~~~
delian66
The frequency of the perceived light coresponds roughly to color. The
frequency of the perceived sound corresponds roughly to pitch. So I think that
"quiet" to "loud" is analogous to "pale" to "bright", when it comes to visible
light.

>>different human cultures divide up the electromagnetic spectrum in different
ways ... Yep, different human cultures divide up the sound spectrum in
different ways too ... So what ?

Some people have absolute pitch perception, allowing them to reproduce a
musical tone, that they had heard exactly, even without knowing its proper
name, just like some people can distinguish between color hues, that other
people lump together as generic "pink", "green", "blue" or "yellow".

Having a vocabulary of specific names may ease learning/training, but it seems
to me, that no matter how many different words for colors you teach a child
with daltonism, the child will still fail a color blindness test.

------
mynameishere
But then, if children were born smart, because they have smart parents, it
would follow that more, and more complex, conversations would ensue. Just
pointing out the obvious.

Establishing causation would require some pretty grievous, and expensive,
social intervention. "Stolen generations" or similar would be the accusation
decades after the inevitable failure of such policies.

But keep dreaming, Slate.

------
x0054
I agree with the article but the title on HN is terrible, and needs to be
changed. The article says that talking with, and reading to, your kids
improves their verbal skills and makes them able to better process
information. Who could argue with that? My mom would read to me all the time
when I was younger. She would read to me books she liked, classic scifi and
such. I enjoyed them very much, even though they weren't written for kids. She
would talk about the stories with me and explain some things I did not get. I
think that helped quite a bit with my language skills. However, that's in
noway negates the fact that some kids are simply smarter genetically then
others. Paying attention to your kid and talking with them would greatly
increase their abilities, but all kids aren't borne equal, and I don't think
the article makes that argument, unlike the title. It should be changed to
"Talking to kids greatly increases their cognitive abilities."

I think having kids be exposed to several other languages as soon as they are
borne, and reading to them books you personally like and find interesting
helps them immensely (obviously filter out explicit content, old classics are
usually good). It's also important not to dumb things down for kids. Basically
Teletubbies = bad, family friendly comedy in a foreign language = good.

In a side note I also find it infuriating how economists always make an
argument that women should go back into the workforce after having kids,
because its good for the family and for the economy. But what about the kid. I
don't want to single out women, but I think either the mother or the father
should take at least 5 years off, after the birth of their child, to raise
their child, instead of hiring a nanny. I understand that it's not fair to
always ask the women to do it, but some one in the family should. It's not
always an option, but more often then not its the children of the wealthy that
you see being raised by nannies. Ok, that's getting off topic.

------
frankosaurus
I've read many articles recently that make similar claims. Chapter 10 of
NurtureShock talks about this. Anecdotally, the idea seems to be growing in
popularity idea among my fellow parents.

One way to capitalize on this would be to create a mobile app which functions
like a pedometer, except it counts the number of words you speak to your
child. Parents could talk to their kids during playtime, and the device would
listen in and use natural language processing to interpret the conversation.
Parents would later get a report on the frequency, complexity, and novelty of
the words used. They could chart progress over time.

~~~
devindotcom
As I read your comment I was afraid you were going to suggest an app that
speaks to your child for you, but I was pleasantly surprised. I like the idea.

~~~
jpadkins
why are you afraid of that idea?

------
ckuehne
None of the results in this article warrants the conclusion in the title.

The fact that "children from affluent families were starting to speak after
implant surgery, those from low-income families lagged behind." can simply be
explained by genetics. I.e., affluent parents tend to have affluent children,
even if those children are raised by other parents [1, 2].

All the cited study does is measure how much the vocabulary of the
_caregivers_ increased due to linguistic feedback methods.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture)
[2] E.g.,
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21425893](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21425893)

------
SloughFeg
Believing everyone is tabula rasa when it comes to intelligence is one of
those white lies society tells itself to make itself feel better. Of course
the environment one grows up in is important but this article is kidding
itself into thinking it is the primary factor.

We inherit so many other traits from our parents, why should intelligence be
any different? What makes it so special that it requires a convoluted
explanation that rests on so many assumptions?

~~~
bayesianhorse
Why should it be different from other traits? Well, we don't really understand
the genetics of physical height. Why should we be so certain we understand the
genetics of intelligence when we barely even understand intelligence itself?

What do we know? Getting Malaria in childhood reduces IQ by a few points.
Resistance to Malaria is partly genetic. Are these genetic factors now a
genetic basis for Intelligence? Shouldn't we just vaccinate the children and
eliminate the problem?

We know that in developing countries, every month in school increases IQ and
earning potential. Should we assume and accept genetic factors in school
attendance as inevitable or should we just require attendance?

We know that in Africa, using cheap deworming agents in school children two
times a year will increase their intelligence and school attendance. Are there
genetic factors in resistance against worms? Does it matter where the
particular ethnicity lives? Sure. Should we care? Not really.

The image that emerges is: Once you hold the environment pretty constant, as
has been done in twin studies (regarding to the above known factors at least),
IQ is largely genetic.

But making decisions on the basis of assumptions about the genetic basis
intelligence is at the very least quite stupid.

------
sharkweek
My boss's son is one of the smartest 18 month old kids I have ever met. He
communication levels are through the roof, and for words he might not be able
to say, or things he might not be able to express, he knows rudimentary sign
language to communicate, e.g., he has a hand signal for "I'm tired" or "I'm
hungry" \-- he almost never has to cry to show he needs something.

It's really quite impressive.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Do you have children? I know ostensibly that is irrelevant but what you're
describing is good and impressive but it's probably not as uncommon as you
think. Baby sign language is pretty popular in the parenting world. Actually,
many babies can do that at much earlier ages. Not to detract anything, just
saying ... :)

~~~
eitally
No kidding. One of the first epiphanies parents have is the fact that their
children are as smart as they are -- all they lack is experience. :)

------
samstave
I have (3) children. I had heard this statement before they were born. I have
made a oncerted effort to verbally engage my kids all the time.

I have some smart kids. I believe this very much. I have a 9yo 2yo and a
newborn.

Both my 9 and 2yo are very smart, however, there is an important piece to this
that needs comment: Teaching your children attention discipline. I have been
using computers daily since 3rd grade. I am 38 years old. I have ___chronic_
__ADHD.

It is important to engage your kids conversationally from the time they are
born, but to also ensure they can sit and focus. WIth my older daughter, this
was accomplished by requiring reading sessions and zero screen time daily.

------
dinkumthinkum
So many articles about who's smart, why are they smart, blah blah blah. I just
wonder if it is just narcissism or its inadequacy or what ... but on some
level, if you think you are smart, then just get on with and do "smart things"
and if you think you're not "smart enough," get on it with anyway ... pining
away about whether Khan Academy can make you the next Einstein or whether you
need to be Einstein to understand it is pointless ... Sure we need some people
to research education and so forth but I feel like we have that covered by
now. :)

~~~
eulerphi
Any discussion around smartness reminds me of the Big Bang Theory. If one
needs to discuss their intellect, well they probably don't have much.

------
ck2
Children are amazing mimics.

If you interact with them in clever and intelligent ways, they seem to end up
thinking similarly.

If you act reserved, prejudice and racist around them, sadly they also learn
to mimic that as well.

------
jpeg_hero
Serious question HN: I often see parents have an almost instinctual need to
feed their children bad information and see if the can detect the falsehoods.

Is this instrumental in teaching "savvy" ?

~~~
jlgreco
I do this with other people who _aren 't_ kids, though I try to keep it to
family and close friends so that I don't thrash my reputation _too_ much.
Typically I'll pick a theme (say, "citrus fruit, and related topics") for a
particular family get-together and see how many semi-plausible but invented
facts revolving around that theme I can inject into conversations. Sometimes
I'm rewarded by hearing facts that I made up regurgitated years later (one
that I am proud of is that orange juice turns an opaque white when
pasteurized, and needs to be dyed back to orange (like margarine) for sale.)

Fundamentally I think this is an exercise in creativity; sort of like telling
a good campfire story of your own creation. So far as people play this game
with kids, I suspect it is because kids are easier to fool so the game is more
rewarding.

------
thehme
This is a wonderful article and I am glad that Slate published it. Wouldn't it
be great if there were more people like Dr. Suskind working in all sectors of
our world?! Her research and findings are definitely something I have seen
firsthand, but I am glad to learn that we have research now that proves my
observations. In fact, I believe that people who work for an hourly wage and
who work long hours to make ends meet, do not have the time/energy to cook for
their families. Instead, with their low income, they look to find easy and
quick ways to feed themselves and their families, sometimes resorting to fast
food, if not always. In turn, the children in these families grow up thinking
this is the way things are done and never learn to cook for themselves. All
they have been taught is to eat what comes out of a can or box, instead of
preparing themselves and egg and toast. Consequently you have generation after
generation not learning to cook, to eat fast food, and this, to me, is the
reason why we have been steadily becoming the most obese and disease plagued
people in the world. I hope that soon there will be solid research to show
that my observation is correct, but more importantly that like developing good
language skills, being healthy is something attainable by even those in low
income households through simple discipline.

------
ogig
I feel something is wrong about this article. In it early language is depicted
as a fundamental block of building intelligence. I also think that's true, so
i find shocking that a cochlear implant is presented as a first step to enable
this in deaf children.

Signs language is the tool they should be using and writting about. Childrens
can comunicate earlier than they can make proper sounds (talk). By teaching
sign language early to deaf AND hearing kid, you have a complex language they
can use earlier than spoken languages. Check this video of a 2 years old
having an engaged conversation.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o8Z2lzS764](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o8Z2lzS764)

My wife is an experienced sign language interpreter and I lost hearing of one
ear so we both are in contact with deaf people. We are actively teaching our
hearing 8 months old daugther signs. I can already notice how she stares at me
when moving my hands around, but this is probably a first time dad thing ;)

On the other hand, cochlear implants create a low definition channel compared
to sign language, it's created later, and the surgery it's not easy. I've met
plenty of deaf people with they implants permanently turned off. The
electrical impulses generated by the implant are a minimal fraction of what a
normal ear does. It's still a very rudimentary tech.

I'm not saying parents should not implant their deafs kids. I wouldn't, but if
they choose to they shouldn't private the child of early sign language because
of it.

------
ethyl66
"At home there was a game that all the parents played with their children. It
was called, What Did You See? Mara was about Dann’s age when she was first
called into her father’s room one evening, where he sat in his big carved and
coloured chair. He said to her, ‘And now we are going to play a game. What was
the thing you liked best today?’

At first she chattered: ‘I played with my cousin . . . I was out with Shera in
the garden . . . I made a stone house.’ And then he had said, ‘Tell me about
the house.’ And she said, ‘I made a house of the stones that come from the
river bed.’ And he said, ‘Now tell me about the stones.’ And she said, ‘They
were mostly smooth stones, but some were sharp and had different shapes.’
‘Tell me what the stones looked like, what colour they were, what did they
feel like.’

And by the time the game ended she knew why some stones were smooth and some
sharp and why they were different colours, some cracked, some so small they
were almost sand. She knew how rivers rolled stones along and how some of them
came from far away. She knew that the river had once been twice as wide as it
was now. There seemed no end to what she knew, and yet her father had not told
her much, but kept asking questions so she found the answers in herself. Like,
‘Why do you think some stones are smooth and round and some still sharp?’ And
she thought and replied, ‘Some have been in the water a long time, rubbing
against other stones, and some have only just been broken off bigger stones.’
Every evening, either her father or her mother called her in for What Did You
See? She loved it. During the day, playing outside or with her toys, alone or
with other children, she found herself thinking, Now notice what you are
doing, so you can tell them tonight what you saw.

She had thought that the game did not change; but then one evening she was
there when her little brother was first asked, What Did You See? and she knew
just how much the game had changed for her. Because now it was not just What
Did You See? but: What were you thinking? What made you think that? Are you
sure that thought is true?

When she became seven, not long ago, and it was time for school, she was in a
room with about twenty children – all from her family or from the Big Family –
and the teacher, her mother’s sister, said, ‘And now the game: What Did You
See?’

Most of the children had played the game since they were tiny; but some had
not, and they were pitied by the ones that had, for they did not notice much
and were often silent when the others said, ‘I saw . . .’, whatever it was.
Mara was at first upset that this game played with so many at once was
simpler, more babyish, than when she was with her parents. It was like going
right back to the earliest stages of the game: ‘What did you see?’ ‘I saw a
bird.’ ‘What kind of a bird?’ ‘It was black and white and had a yellow beak.’
‘What shape of beak? Why do you think the beak is shaped like that?’

Then she saw what she was supposed to be understanding: Why did one child see
this and the other that? Why did it sometimes need several children to see
everything about a stone or a bird or a person?"

\--Doris Lessing, "Mara and Dann" (Hat tip:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/43w/rationality_quotes_february_2011...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/43w/rationality_quotes_february_2011/3gdr))

~~~
rcfox
Half tongue-in-cheek, half serious, but all I could think of while reading the
first paragraphs was, "Playing all of those text adventure games has trained
me to be a better parent!"

------
abdulhaq
30 million words fewer in 3 years?? That's 27397 words per day... at 12 waking
hours per day for a child it's about 38 words per minute - I find it hard to
believe.

~~~
stephenbez
I was curious too. To get a back of the envelope calculation on how fast
people talk I watched a talk show and counted how many words they said in 1
minute. It was 103, so it seems possible.

------
Mindless2112
The importance of talking with your children during early development was also
covered on an episode[1] of Lexicon Valley (referencing the same research data
as this article) for those interested.

[1]
[http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/06/lexicon_valley_on_research_by_betty_hart_and_todd_risley_early_childhood.html)

~~~
kumarski
grazie. I was looking for this one.

------
girvo
My parents like to tell the storiy of my childhood. Basically, I used to think
I was an adult (despite being 5) and talk to everyone. The best part, is that
I _was_ treated like an adult, and am pretty intelligent these days as well :)
More importantly, it gave me confidence from an early age. That's the best
gift I think a child can be given, especially one that is into "fringe"
pursuits.

~~~
eulerphi
I cringed when I read you saying 'am pretty intelligent these days' Einstein,
Euler, Reimann realized that the subjects and challenges were truly important,
not their intelligence. Solve life, don't inflate self.

~~~
girvo
Nothing I work on is truly important. :)

And I actually mean that. Not yet. Soon, perhaps, but not now. And I said
"pretty intelligent", not that I was up there with the greats. I find it
interesting you took that from my post!

~~~
supo
Saying that you are intelligent is just so cringe-worthy. If you want to make
a point about yourself give two small examples of what you've achieved and let
the reader form an opinion.

------
Theodores
I think this article is about much more than nature vs. nurture and it doesn't
deserve to be trolled that way.

We can learn a lot about ourselves, language and how we learn from
understanding a bit about those born deaf. It really is a big deal and Oliver
Sacks gets to the heart of the matter in his excellent book 'Seeing Voices: A
Journey into the World of the Deaf':

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0330523643/](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0330523643/)

A highly recommended read for anyone on HN...

The article also mentions nannies. A problem they have that the parents aren't
ever made aware of is what happens when the child uses big meaningful words
for the first time. The nanny wants the parents to be the first to hear these
words rather than merely report back to the parents that said big meaningful
words have been said. So praise cannot always be given by a nanny when praise
is deserved.

Although the article says that quality conversation is important, the metric
seems to be quantity of words. After a certain developmental stage I am not
sure how helpful quantity actually is. There are plenty of adults that I have
met over the years that can babble on and babble on. If you are actually
trying to concentrate on something then having a constant babbler around is
just so not what you need. I consider myself to be a bit of a rambler but not
a constant babbler. However, I cannot engage with a toddler in the way a
constant babbler can. I go quiet on the two year old whereas the babbler does
not.

Further down the line I think that the dinner table offers an amazing
opportunity for children to improve their vocabulary, engage in conversation,
learn when to listen and when to talk. This is particularly the case when
parents have adult guests and allow young children to be on the same table
eating the same food. Here the nurture comes from extended family and friends.
I feel slightly sorry for friends that did not get this during their formative
years, even if they did have more time in restaurants (which are posh and
grown up).

------
jug6ernaut
This may have already been mentioned, but (at least in my opinion) its not as
much about conversation as it is about stimuli.

Stimulating children's brains through conversation && || other means is what
allows/makes/(stimulates) the brain to grow and learn.

------
aaron695
I think things from the study like this are probably more relevant.

"In addition to a lack of exposure to these 30 million words, the words a
child from a low-income family has typically mastered are often negative
directives, meaning words of discouragement. The ratios of encouraging versus
discouraging feedback found within the study, when extrapolated, evidences
that by age four, the average child from a family on welfare will hear 125,000
more words of discouragement than encouragement. When compared to the 560,000
more words of praise as opposed to discouragement that a child from a high-
income family will receive, this disparity is extraordinarily vast."

------
Ras_
I've seen many similarities with the group of friends I grew up with. Did we
grow up and become more like each other or was our similarity (temperament,
values) something that brought us together in the first place?

For example I was the first in our father's side of family to go into higher
ed, but everyone in my group of pre-18 school friends ended up there. Many
other groups in our school were characterized by other things like marrying
young or seeking traditional blue collar jobs.

At least there was plenty of time for conversations to mold our thoughts.
Parents might actually account for less than friends.

------
atmosx
I'm not sure how you can do this kind of social research and be _absolutely
sure_ about the results you'll find, apart from taking a sample, measuring and
trying to concatenate one fact with the other.

What nobody knows is the exact weight of this _factor_ in the unknown equation
which governs human intelligence. Hence from a scientific point of view:

"Those who assume hypotheses as first principles of their speculations […] may
indeed form an ingenious romance, but a romance it will still be." \- Roger
Cotes.

Excerpt from the preface to Sir Isaac Newton’s _Principia Mathematica_ ,
second edition, 1713.

------
seiji
The same goes for if you want to teach your dog a crazy number of things
casually (upstairs, downstairs, names of people, names of toys, go-to-crate,
names of rooms, difference between food and water bowls, ...).

------
rsheridan6
I would think little kids today don't get talked to as much as they did in the
past because many or most have single mothers with jobs and few or no
siblings, whereas the baby boomers had a dad and a stay at home mom and lots
of siblings. And they had nothing to do but talk to each other, since you
couldn't spend all day staring at screens then.

If this is correct, developments in the last several decades should have been
a cognitive disaster. Afaik they weren't.

------
bnolsen
It also helps to have an engaged and decedt dad around. As a generalization,
moms tend to be more protective and dads tend to be more "come on and grow up
already".

Children need to be treated like they are real people and encouraged to make
good, responsible decisions of their own accord, not just be ordered around
like they are troublesome objects. That means parents need to be responsible
stewards of their children.

------
gaoshan
Personally I suspect that children are born with varying levels of
intelligence (yes, some people are born less intelligent than others) and that
the sort of nurturing one provides has a strong effect on how that
intelligence develops. I suspect that nurturing can make up a lot of ground
but that we do not all start from an even playing field.

------
tsotha
Anybody who's seen a family with more than one child knows environment isn't
the primary determinant of intelligence. I know the blank slate theory is
comfortable from a political standpoint, but to quote Orwell, "You have to be
an intellectual to believe such nonsense. No ordinary man could be such a
fool."

------
utopkara
Probably any conversation is good, but conversation that carefully fuels
curiosity is fun and it also induces a self-sustaining habit:
[http://www.jonathanmugan.com/CuriosityCycle/](http://www.jonathanmugan.com/CuriosityCycle/)

------
cateye
The never ending nature versus nurture debate:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture)

------
dreamdu5t
Conversation or vocabulary? It seems to me they conflate the two simply
because conversation time is correlated with higher vocabulary. Do the studies
control for this?

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Is_Father_to_the_Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Is_Father_to_the_Man)

------
jgalt212
Can some please find out what Billy Ray Valentine thinks about the nature vs
nurture debate?

Hold up! Hey, who's been putting out their Kools on my floor?

------
hosh
Talking to kids like an adult -- what a concept!

I'm glad this article came out, and getting this method more in the
mainstream.

------
cdf
Interesting tidbit: The Chinese phrase for smart, "聪明" quite literally means
"clear hearing".

------
becauseICan
Alternatively: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by breathing
air.

------
waldrews
“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of
genius”. - Gibbon

------
thenerdfiles
Uh.

"Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination."
— L.W.

But in the end, when you've got a government solicited to diminish your
powers, nothing beats a Classical education.

------
goggles99
This claim can be dis-proven by common sense. Lets look at families with more
kids. Each kid should be smarter and smarter because the other kids talk and
converse.

Kids who go to day care with other older, talking kids should be brilliant.

I am sure that there are many other no-brainier situations when kids hear more
words and have more conversations and are not smarter as well.

Why do these big scientific articles like this always seem so trivially flawed
and ridiculous? Is is just me?

------
a3voices
I think it's also the same with pet dogs, at least with the intelligent
breeds. If you have a border collie, talking to it a lot makes it smarter. At
least it seems that way.

~~~
Kudzu_Bob
You should write that up and submit it to Slate. I'm sure that they would
publish it.

------
Kudzu_Bob
I guess poor children hear fewer words because they don't watch much
television.

~~~
sandGorgon
actually this is a question that I had - could mediums like television, or a
tablet app make up for the parents not talking ?

Or does it need for the child to speak back ?

~~~
aestra
"Screen time" (TV, tablets) has been demonstrated to be _harmful_ to childhood
development in children younger than 2. The American Academy of Pediatrics
recommends ZERO screen time for children younger than two (this includes
background TV).

Some carefully planned educational programs like Sesame Street have shown to
be beneficial in older children. Screen time should be minimized though, as it
isn't a replacement for interaction.

Does do read the article, it teaches the parent to avoid commands like "put
your shoes on" and instead substitute interactive talk like "we are getting
ready to go out, what do you need to do to get ready?" That lets the child
reply with "shoes" or "coat." It is about interacting with your child.

------
ausjke
the real deep thinkers, are not necessary good at conversation I believe,
actually there is a saying "the _real_ smart people don't speak much, and they
usually look dumb" sorry I did not bother to read the article, the title
stopped me from reading it.

~~~
eruditely
>I did not bother to read the article

This is probably why you're not a 'real think er', and no I don't really agree
with the article either.

~~~
ausjke
Hmm i did not mean i am a deep thinker,just put on my quick thoughts after
reading all the comments here,at least i dont down vote others by assumption

