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Listen to Your Mother

Young children face a remarkable challenge in learning to use the language of their culture. Toddlers vary widely, however, in the rate at which they learn new words.1 A team of Harvard Graduate School of Education researchers set out to ask whether and how children's language environment can impact vocabulary development. In their study of mother-child pairs from low-income families, they found that mothers who used many different words (not just many words) had toddlers with faster growth in vocabulary use. During the toddler and preschool years, most children learn to use hundreds of words, combining them into sentences and engaging in conversation with others. From previous research, we know that variation in vocabulary growth relates to child characteristics like gender, and also to parental factors. What did they find? 1Huttenlocher, J., Haight, W., Bryk, A., Seltzer, M., & Lyons, T. (1991). 2Bauer, D.J., Goldfield, B.A., & Reznick, J.S. (2002). 3Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1998).

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/08/05/listen-your-mother

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Convention on the Rights of the Child Text in PDF Format Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989 entry into force 2 September 1990, in accordance with article 49 Preamble The States Parties to the present Convention, Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

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