
The Thirty Million Word Gap - charlieirish
http://literacy.rice.edu/thirty-million-word-gap
======
cb18
_Follow-up studies showed that these differences in language and interaction
experiences have lasting effects on a child’s performance later in life._

That's quite a leap to say "this caused that," rather than them both just
being a side-effect/characteristic of something else.

It is the height of shoddy science to look at correlated data points and
proclaim a conclusion. But of course, much of what falls under 'social
science' especially these days is shoddy.

~~~
gohrt
[http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459](http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459)

>>> Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational
challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials

Abstract Objectives To determine whether parachutes are effective in
preventing major trauma related to gravitational challenge.

Design Systematic review of randomised controlled trials.

...

Study selection: Studies showing the effects of using a parachute during free
fall.

Results: We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of
parachute intervention.

Conclusions: As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the
effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by
using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have
criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational
data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of
evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind,
randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute. <<<

~~~
cb18
Not sure what your point is...

If mine wasn't clear to you, the article starts with a claim that this 'word
gap' is the _cause_ of effects observed later in life. It's easy to see the
attraction of this, simply talk to kids more, then better adults right?

This is hardly cutting edge research, this has been floating around for some
time, long enough for people to do some 'interventions,' of talking to kids
more and the like, what did they find? Not much difference.

Back to the drawing board then right? Nope, not in social science, in social
science if the results don't match our desires, we keep trying to beat the
square peg into the round hole until they do!

What makes this shoddy science is that they assert the 'word gap' to be the
cause with no evidence of it being so, and ignore other explanations, things
like perhaps there are heritable 'psychological proclivities' that lead to
parents raising a child in a particular way, the child inherits some portion
and arrangement of these 'psychological proclivities' from the parent, these
same 'psychological proclivities' then have an effect on the things observed
later in life.

So if the social scientists want to do something productive instead of
ignoring or bemoaning the fact that there are genuine differences among
people, they could explore ways of structuring societies and institutions such
that better results for people of all 'psychological proclivities' can be
achieved.

------
jpatokal
How much of this gap is explained by the fact that low-income earners have to
work harder and thus have both less time to interact with their children, and
less money to hire other humans to interact with them?

Consider a wealthy "Leave it to Beaver" one-income family: dad works, mom
stays at home and drags the tots to an endless series of carefully selected
enrichment activites, maybe drops them off at a Montessori day care a few days
a week.

While at the other end of the social scale, single mom works two jobs to make
ends meet and is barely ever home, so kids are left with a relative who's
taking care of a whole brood of children, or plunked down in front of the TV
and told to keep quiet.

~~~
frankosaurus
Read the Experimental Method section. The experimenters conducted monthly
hour-long observations of families.

We don't know how often these parents conversed with their kids outside these
observation periods.

------
mbesto
Shameless plug. My fiancee's company is working to solve this. Check out their
wearable device:

[http://www.versame.com/](http://www.versame.com/)

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/starling-a-child-s-
wearab...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/starling-a-child-s-wearable-
that-can-boost-iq)

~~~
schd
I think the kind of people (socio-economically speaking) who would actually
buy this are not the ones that actually need it. I would be more worried about
attaching an RF transmitter to my kids hearing enough words.

~~~
chrisboggiano
Hi schd - I'm one of the creators of the Starling. We've designed the Starling
for every family, including gadget distracted parents (like me). We're also
working with a non-profit called Literacy Lab in Oakland to get Starlings into
low income homes and have had a number of devices donated through our
campaign.

On RF, the Starling uses Bluetooth LE, which uses about 1500 times less energy
than a smartphone. We've also designed it so parents can tell it to only sync
with their phones when they place it in its charging dock.

------
josaka
Podcast and book on the same topic, both recommended:
[http://freakonomics.com/2015/11/19/does-early-education-
come...](http://freakonomics.com/2015/11/19/does-early-education-come-way-too-
late-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Million-Words-Building-
Childs/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Million-Words-Building-
Childs/dp/0525954872)

------
alexbecker
This number struck me as unbelievably large when I first heard it, so I looked
into it here: [http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/20139/do-poor-
ch...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/20139/do-poor-children-
hear-30-million-fewer-words-by-age-3)

tl;dr I think 30 million is an overestimate.

------
kelukelugames
Sensationalist title. I don't think the difference between people with rich
and poor backgrounds is the size of the word gap.

------
rhaps0dy
Why is Terry Davis' comment [dead]? It's a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.
IQ's heritability is well-known. So is correlation of IQ with income (although
it is much weaker)

That said, if the word gap was smaller, the poorer children would be better
off. The effects described above are statistic and only apply to most cases
for a certain definition of most.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I wonder, though, how much of IQ's heritability is cultural.

It would work like this: My parents were poor, and had lower IQs. They didn't
have time to read to me or talk a lot to me or spend a lot of time with me.
They were too tired, just trying to make enough money to keep us all fed.

Now I've got kids, and I'm repeating the same pattern, partly because I'm
tired from working too hard, and partly because that's the pattern I saw
growing up, and so it's the default behavior for me.

Note well: This account is fictional, not my actual experience. It's not even
anecdotal evidence for my position. It's a hypothetical explanation of how
cultural baggage could be inherited between generations in a way that could
affect IQ.

~~~
cb18
The scenario you describe is really one more common to the modern world of
just the past couple generations.

Intelligence has been evolving and subject to inheritance far longer than
that.

Believe it or not, the scenario you describe has occurred to researchers as an
avenue of study, and they found it didn't amount to much(i.e. nature over
nurture), see 'twin studies.'

This subject, intelligence, is really one of the triumphs of 20th century
science, in that it has come to be quite well understood. It's understandable
that you and so many others seem unaware of this, however, because to quote
Steven Pinker, 'people hate the message.'
[https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/645301814955388930](https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/645301814955388930)

Also, you may consider abandoning this notion of genetics and culture being in
an uncorrelated relationship.

Cultures are simply people, that is they are emergent from the interactions of
people, and since there are high IQ people and low IQ people, there are high
IQ cultures and low IQ cultures.

------
TerryADavis
Maybe so. I believe in evolution. I believe that IQ is inherited.

~~~
meowface
Why can't it be both?

