Chatterbox Parents Can Increase The Intelligence Of Children

The new main study, led by researchers at the University of York, identified a link between children who heard large amounts of adult speech and their nonverbal skills, such as reasoning, number ability and shape awareness.

The researchers got an unprecedented glimpse into the secret lives of preschoolers by placing small audio recorders on children's clothes from two to four years old.

The experiences of 107 children and their interactions with parents and other caregivers were recorded in the family environment for three days and up to 16 hours per day.

Parents were also asked to complete activities with their children, which included drawing, copying and combination tasks, designed to test their children's cognitive skills.

The study's lead author, Katrina d'Apice, a PhD student at the Department of Education at York University, said: "The use of audio recorders allowed us to study real-life interactions between young children and their families. discreetly within the domestic environment rather than a laboratory environment.

"We found that the number of words spoken in adults that children hear is positively associated with their cognitive ability, however, more research is needed to explore the reasons behind this link: it could be that more exposure to language offers more opportunities to learning for children., but it could also be the case that smarter children evoke more words from adults in their environment. "

The researchers also found that high-quality adult speech can have benefits for children's language development, since the children in the study who interacted with adults who used a diverse vocabulary knew a wide variety of words.

The study also analyzed the recordings to observe the impact that different parenting styles could have on children's behavior.

d'Apice and colleagues found that positive parenting, in which parents respond and encourage exploration and self-expression, was associated with children who showed less signs of restless, aggressive and disobedient behaviors.

The lead author of the study, Professor Sophie von Stumm of the Department of Education at the University of York, said: "This study is the largest naturalistic observation of early-life family environments to date.

"We found that the number of words spoken by adults to which the children were exposed varied greatly within families, some children heard twice as many words in one day as in the next.

"The study highlights the importance of treating early life experiences as dynamic and changing rather than static entities: focusing research in this way will help us understand the interaction between environmental experiences and children's differences in development".

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190430105753.htm