In Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children (1995), Hart and Risley explained how critical verbal interactions are for the cognitive development of children.  These researchers  studied the language used in the first few years  of the baby's lives. They determined that, on the average, parents speaks over 1,500 words per hour to their babies.  Some parents only spoke 600 words per hour while on the other hand talkative college-educated parents spoke about 2,100 words per hour. These differences over time create incredible differences in their children's learning. By three years, children of college-educated parents had heard 48 million words while the other children had heard only 13 million words; a difference of 369%. These heard words translated into better verbal skills.

These scientists differentiated between “business talk” which consists of explaining things to  be done with young children such as  “”Let's put on your shirt”  and “language dancing talk” where the parents engage face to face with the infant and speak  in a fully adult, sophisticated language.  “Language dancing” or “extra talk” develops the children's vocabulary. They found that the content of the language is not as important as the quantity of the language. Parents can recap their day, read a recipe, tell a story about grandpa, think aloud about changes they would like to make to the house, complain about the weather, read a book, or tell what has happened on their favorite TV show. The parents just need to talk in adult talk to the baby.

These researchers followed the children in the study through their schooling. At age nine there was a .77 correlation between the amount of language dancing  the children  had experienced before they were three years old and the the students' scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test.

In their next book,  The Social World of Children Learning to Talk (1995), Hart and Risley turned their attention to the talking that young children do. They discovered that at three years, each child's talking copied their parents' talking. Although children began to talk more and more, their talking rate leveled off when they began to talk as much as their parents had been talking to them. Children's  early fluency in language use,  expressive language, is related to the amount of expressive language practice they have in their everyday lives Talkative parents produced expressive children; conversely, parents who talked little to their children produced children who talked little. In order for children to use more language, the parents need to increase their level of  talking to the young children.   Again the authors urge all parents to talk to their children as much as they can during these early developmental years.

What can schools do to improve this lack of babies' vocabulary at home? They can offer  workshops on talking to a baby Also, they can send home short informative brochures about the tremendous benefits of talking to a baby.  In addition, they might develop a YouTube video showing the advantages and some techniques to increase baby talking. In healthy classes that deal with parenting, students can practice adult language talk with babies.  Schools can  offer “community service” for talking to babies.  If the school has a nursery, then the care givers can be instructed to talk  to the babies in adult talk.  Also, schools might help coordinate “baby talkers”, retired teachers who would volunteer to go to talk to babies.  These “baby talkers” can spend  two hours talking to the baby about any topic; they focus their attention on talking to the baby.

Schools who invest time in helping young children hear adult vocabulary and talking patterns obtain the benefit of having smarter students.

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