Source: Anna Brown

Written by Anna Brown

The “risks” of using a smartphone have been a topic of discussion for some time. A recent study highlighted that smartphone use can impact mothers’ communication with their children. Evidence suggests that phone use can lead to a 16% drop in the number of words mothers speak per minute compared to when they’re not on the phone. Shorter phone use of just 1-2 minutes resulted in a 26% reduction in words.

Smartphones are an integral part of daily life as tools for browsing, paying and connecting to our social networks. Parents are often reminded of the importance of helping their child learn a language. Finding a balance between reducing smartphone use and interacting with your child can be a challenge for parents. The new research above will likely leave busy parents wondering: If I speak 16% less, does that mean my child’s language development will be 16% worse?

Researchers have investigated similar questions by studying the relationship between parents’ and children’s language. They found that parents’ speech significantly influences children’s language development. This finding then prompted researchers to examine whether the quantity or quality of parental speech is more crucial for children’s language development.

Amount of speech

Researchers define speech quantity as the amount of speech the child hears. Specifically, how much speech is directed to the child, heard in conversation or on television and other digital media.

One of most famous studies on the amount of speech parents talk was conducted by Betty Hart and Todd Risley in 1995. They observed 42 families and measured the amount of speech heard by the families’ children. They found that by age 3, children from wealthier families had heard about 30 million more words than children from less affluent backgrounds. This observation began important political discussions and inspired interventions to increase the amount of parents talking to their children. The “30 million gap” is derived from counting the words a child hears in an hour, which does not accurately reflect their first three years, and this figure is an overestimate.

Technology has advanced and today researchers can observe with much more precision how much speech children hear. An example of this technology is LENA (Language Environment Analysis). Children wear a digital audio recording device in a T-shirt pocket that records every speech they hear for 24 hours. The LENA tool can then extract the amount of speech children heard from adults, the amount of speech from children themselves, and even the amount of TV or digital noise they heard.

Using LENA, research has shown that The more words parents speak to their children, the more their children’s vocabulary becomes richer. Verbal exchanges between child and adult are particularly powerful for strengthening children’s language skills. The study also found that overheard speech (for example, adult conversation or televised speech) had a lesser impact on language development than direct parent-child interactions.

Source: Anna Brown

Speech quality

The quality of speech is more complex and more diverse than the quantity. Yet the quality of speech may be even more crucial to children’s language development than the number of words they hear.

Quality can refer to the quality of the interaction and the extent to which the parent and child are engaged in the conversation. The more involved the child and parent are, the more the child will listen and learn better. Engaged interaction creates excellent opportunities for parents to expand on what the child is saying.

For example, when a child points and says “Cat,” a parent can expand on this point by responding, “Yes, a black cat.” Where did you think it was going? Studies have shown that responding to children’s utterances by expanding them allowed children to understand and use more words.

Quality can also mean the quality of vocabulary and grammar used in the speech. Parents use varied vocabularies; some have a large range of sophisticated words, while others have a smaller range and use the same words. As the child develops his language, he uses a range of different words becomes more important than hearing the same words several times.

What is more important, quality or quantity?

The short answer is that it’s complicated. There’s no magic number for quantity, but more is always better. However, life as a parent can quickly become hectic, so having a little engaged conversation with your child can be just as beneficial. Here are five simple tips for increasing the quantity and quality of conversations with children.

1. Take their example: Even if a child wants to read the same story over and over, even if it may seem tedious, take the lead and participate in activities that interest them.

2. Tell about everyday life: Talk about everything you do, like making dinner, bath time, and running errands. This is a great way to introduce new vocabulary to the child while completing daily tasks.

3. Add a word: When children respond in conversation, you can expose them to more complex language by adding a single word. For example, if you hear “Look, a cat,” respond “Yes, a black cat.”

4. Model the response: As children learn a language, they may make mistakes that are tempting to correct. Instead of correcting them, model the correct response and keep the conversation flowing. If a child says, “I went to the park,” instead of saying: “No, it’s ‘gone,’ not ‘gone,'” you can model the correct verb by responding: “Oh, you went to the park!” This looks fun.

5. Ask questions: Asking children questions elicits answers, exposes them to different sentence structures, encourages turn-taking, and checks their understanding of vocabulary. For example, if a child shows you a cat, you might say, “Yes, a black cat. Where do you think it’s going?

Overall, if you, like many parents, struggle to give up time spent on your smartphone, you can overcome the 16% decline in language by implementing the tips above and focusing instead on quality. Your child will still be chatting before you know it!