What causes the word gap? Financial concerns may systematically suppress child‐directed speech

Preregistration establishes transparent and verifiable links between hypotheses, statistical tests, and error-control of decisions. In this comment, I critique both the preregistration of, and the presentation of preregistered results from two studies investigating scarcity as a potential cause of the word gap. The primary goal is to illustrate how and why preregistration should guide the way results are framed, and how this might influence conclusions drawn.

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Speculations about Bridging the Göttingen-Freiburg “Gap” in Phenomenology This paper was the keynote address at the North American Society for Early Phenomenology, Western University, Ontario, in June 2013. Since presenting it, I have come to recognize that there is no historical gap between phenomenology as pursued in relation to the two mentioned places and that it is also wrong to speak of “development,” “evolution,” or even “transition,” which have normative connotations, and that just “change” is better. Nevertheless, it seems inappropriate to change the title of an essay once it has been used in public and so I have only added so-called “scare quotes” to the word “gap.” Changes have been made in the content, however.

Early Phenomenology : Metaphysics, Ethics, and the Philosophy of Religion ◽

10.5040/9781474276078.ch-001 ◽

2016 ◽

Keyword(s):

North American ◽

Keynote Address ◽

North American Society ◽

The North ◽

American Society ◽

Word Gap ◽

Made In

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Háblame Bebé: A phone application intervention to support Hispanic children’s early language environments and bilingualism

Child Language Teaching and Therapy ◽

10.1177/0265659020903779 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 33-57 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Melissa Baralt ◽

Ashley Darcy Mahoney ◽

Natalie Brito

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Low Income ◽

Home Visiting ◽

Phase Iii ◽

Early Language ◽

Verbal Interactions ◽

Spanish Speaking ◽

Hispanic Mothers ◽

The Usa ◽

Word Gap

The early language environments of low-income Hispanic children can be negatively affected when their Spanish-speaking caregivers face racism, assimilation pressure, and/or misinformed advice based on English-only ideologies. This article reports on the design and efficacy of Háblame Bebé, a language-promoting phone application that encourages low-income Hispanic mothers to talk more to their children in their native Spanish with the goals of (1) improving their children’s early language environment, (2) promoting bilingualism, and (3) monitoring developmental milestones. The app was designed and tested across three phases as mandated by the US HRSA Bridging the Word Gap Challenge. In Phase I, we developed a curriculum that promotes high-quality language interactions in Spanish and designed the app components. In Phase II, we tested the app with 20 Hispanic mothers (half high school-educated, half college-educated) in a pretest–posttest design in which we examined their language interactions before and after two months of using the app. Preliminary results indicated that mother–child verbal interactions increased, but not always in their native Spanish, and the difference was not statistically significant. Focus group data revealed that many of the mothers had experienced linguistic racism and that tropes surrounding Spanish-speaking identity in the USA needed to be explicitly addressed within the intervention. In Phase III, a sociolinguistic pride component was added and the app was again tested with 12 additional Hispanic mothers (all high school-educated only). This time, a statistically significant increase in mother–child verbal interactions was found. Mothers also reported feeling prouder to use Spanish with their children. These results suggest that Háblame Bebé may be a viable means to reach low-income Hispanic caregivers who face obstacles in accessing health information and/or home-visiting programs for their children.

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How many words are Australian children hearing in the first year of life?

10.21203/rs.2.14550/v2 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Mary E Brushe ◽

John W. Lynch ◽

Sheena Reilly ◽

Edward Melhuish ◽

Sally A. Brinkman

Keyword(s):

Maternal Education ◽

First Year ◽

Verbal Interactions ◽

Environment Analysis ◽

Large Variability ◽

Education Group ◽

Word Gap ◽

First Year Of Life ◽

Education Groups ◽

Conversational Turns

Abstract Background: There is evidence that parents from more socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds engage in fewer verbal interactions with their child than more advantaged parents. This leads to the so-called, ‘30 million-word gap’. We used improved technology to investigate the number of words children hear in their first year of life. Methods: Mothers were recruited into a five-year prospective cohort study and categorized into either high or low maternal education groups. Data was derived from the first two waves of the study, when the children were six and twelve months old. At both waves, children were involved in day-long audio recordings using the Language Environment Analysis software that provided automatic counts of adult words spoken to the child, child vocalizations and conversational turns. Descriptive results are presented by maternal education groups. Results: There was large variation within each maternal education group, with the number of adult words spoken to the child ranging from 2,958 to 39,583 at six months and 4,389 to 45,849 at twelve months. There were no meaningful differences between adult words, child vocalizations or conversational turns across maternal education groups at either wave of data collection. Conclusions: These results show that a word gap related to maternal education is not apparent up to twelve months of age. The large variability among both maternal education groups suggests that universal interventions that encourage all parents to talk more to their child may be more appropriate than interventions targeted towards disadvantaged families during the first year of life.

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Progress Toward a Multisectoral Community Intervention Approach to Prevention of the Word Gap

Behavior and Social Issues ◽

10.1007/s42822-021-00074-y ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Charles R. Greenwood ◽

Judith J. Carta ◽

Alana G. Schnitz ◽

Dale Walker ◽

Dola Gabriel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Community Intervention ◽

Intervention Approach ◽

Word Gap

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How many words are Australian children hearing in the first year of life?

10.21203/rs.2.14550/v4 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Mary E Brushe ◽

John W. Lynch ◽

Sheena Reilly ◽

Edward Melhuish ◽

Sally A. Brinkman

Keyword(s):

Maternal Education ◽

First Year ◽

Verbal Interactions ◽

Environment Analysis ◽

Large Variability ◽

Education Group ◽

Word Gap ◽

First Year Of Life ◽

Education Groups ◽

Conversational Turns

Abstract Background: There is evidence that parents from more socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds engage in fewer verbal interactions with their child than more advantaged parents. This leads to the so-called, ‘30 million-word gap’. Methods: We used improved technology to investigate the number of words children hear in their first year of life. Mothers were recruited into a five-year prospective cohort study and categorized into either high or low maternal education groups. Data was derived from the first two waves of the study, when the children were six and twelve months old. At both waves, children were involved in day-long audio recordings using the Language Environment Analysis software that provided automatic counts of adult words spoken to the child, child vocalizations and conversational turns. Descriptive results are presented by maternal education groups. Results: There was large variation within each maternal education group, with the number of adult words spoken to the child ranging from 2,958 to 39,583 at six months and 4,389 to 45,849 at twelve months. There were no meaningful differences between adult words, child vocalizations or conversational turns across maternal education groups at either wave of data collection. Conclusions: These results show that a word gap related to maternal education is not apparent up to twelve months of age. The large variability among both maternal education groups suggests that universal interventions that encourage all parents to talk more to their child may be more appropriate than interventions targeted towards disadvantaged families during the first year of life.

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