Dr. Sowell's son John talked late. I think I have a copy of the book, but a lot of my books are in storage right now so I can't look at more than Amazon's sample pages.
Posted on 01/04/2010 9:10:50 PM PST by ransomnote
The survey of more than 1,000 parents found that a child’s background was not a factor in how quickly they learnt to talk. Working parents who put their babies in day care are just as likely to have a child whose speech develops late as those who leave their baby in front of the television.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
I excerpted the part that I did because some information is mysteriously left out. Notice that they compare daycare children of working parents to children who are left in front of the television...what happened to the children who interact with stay at home moms, other children etc.? If the data show that interacting with your baby brings about superior performance in terms of speaking then that would not promote daycare, would it?
I know parents who must put their children in daycare at a young age and and some have told me how much they wish they could afford to stay home with the child. Other parents report that their children do well in daycare. I am not specifically anti-daycare, it's just that I don't like the inference that the decision to use daycare or stay home with the child should not be left to the parents. This again makes me think it's a push to allow the government to raise your children but I could be wrong. Any thoughts from parents out there?
PS: I know this a UK article, I am also wondering if this drive to get all parents into the work force exists in the UK.
My grandson was speaking full sentences by the time he was two. The kids never had a TV in the house, so he was read to, talked to, and mom stayed at home with him.
Dr. Sowell's son John talked late. I think I have a copy of the book, but a lot of my books are in storage right now so I can't look at more than Amazon's sample pages.
Not a big deal. Our current pResident uses a teleprompter to speak.
Thoughts?
We are two generations out from the stay-at-home mom, whose immediacy and interest in the development of her own children was paramount. It must have been luxurious.
Now, we have rule-obeying robots who bite other children, literally or figuratively, and think with a slightly feral, us vs them mentality reminiscent of “Mad Max”. Soon, when the older folks are killed off by obama deathcare, everyone will live in Gattica, except for those who are relegated to the ‘pens’ from “Planet of the Apes”.
Come, Lion of Judah, please. The ‘intelligent life’ of this planet is becoming a choice among species.
You can’t say because your child spoke early that it was his wonderful environment. Children who speak late often come from just as good an environment. My children were born into a wonderfully rich verbal loving environment, and one was speaking at 9 months and another one was BARELY speaking at 2.5, and only with help of a competent speech therapist. Different kids, different abilities.
Some great mom or dad might be reading this, slightly concerned about his toddler, who isn’t talking as much as the books say, and fear that it’s the parents’ fault, that they did not do something enough. It’s mostly NOT that. Brains develop at their own pace. My barely-speaking at 3 son has caught up so much.
It’s true, though, that the brain has important windows for learning speech, and it’s important that one gets an evaluation soon, if a parent notices a delay. A pediatrician can help you get started.
I agree with you about the importance of being home with the child. But even in those wonderful circumstances, kids still have trouble sometimes.
Perhaps more trouble now than in decades past. It could be something affecting them neurologically. I would point to possibly environmental chemical pollutants found in the mother’s womb (by her exposure to them), or the many dangers lurking in the 20-something vaccines shot into the baby’s bloodstream by age 6 months. Far too many, with far too much crap in each, far too young.
my youngest son had a 1,500 word vocabulary at 18 months... before he even spoke his first word when he was 10 months (which was “fan...” he pointed to a ceiling fan as he spoke it) he could show me his eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, fingers, hands, head, hair, tummy, legs, toes... he was six-months old when he came to live with us—we adopted him through the county... at six months he was said to be more like a four-month old... when they came to test him at one year (after being with us for six months) they could not believe how much he had advanced in such a short time... we talked, talked, talked with him... and showed and pointed things out to him... i taught him a lot of vocabulary by playing games with him... this is how i taught him phonics... he had no clue he was learning... to him it was all fun...
It’s probably a made-up story, but suppossedly Einstein was a “late speaker”.
As the story goes, the parents asked him why he hadn’t spoken before.
And the young Einstein (here’s the punch line!) says “I didn’t have
anything to say.”
I agree. I’veoften wondered if some of the weird s#!t I have was some kind of reaction.
Left mostly unattended at day care or in front of the TV makes little difference.
Sometimes kids just have speech problems.
I have identical twin girls and neither of them talked until after they were 3. We found out that one of them has a brain injury (they were both high risk for a brain injury), but the other one doesn’t.
The one without a brain injury is 13 now. Before Christmas she was a lead in a school play. After the play, she said “I think I got over my speech problems.” She has. She’s also very smart.
The one with a brain injury still has speech problems, but most people just think she has some sort of foreign accent. Her reading is a little slow, and she is not a great writer, but overall she’s great.
I believe Albert Einstein was a slow developer.
I believe you have pinned down one of several prime contributions to America’s dysfunctional learning process and failure to educate. I have noticed in several families were high TV, lax parenting and pop-culture norms are applied the children are socially, mentally and educationally lacking. Especially, where the children are diagnosed with some malady such as ADHD, Autism and get this one “Youthful Tendency Disorder” (YTD) and/or medicated. In many of these families, regimentation, supervision and discipline are seemingly to be in short supply. However, in two cases, one of hyperactivity the other a form of mild Autism, I noticed when interacting with their parents, they were not sure of what was being said or why certain behavior occurred at certain times. After listening to the children and watching them interact, I told the parents that they were emulating and speaking almost exactly like cartoon or child TV characters. The parents turned off the TVs, CDs and computer games…what a battle that was from what I was told; the improvements manifested shortly thereafter. In another case, of a moderate dysfunction, the child was diagnosed as having Autistic Characteristics. Shortly after, father relocated for employment, and was staying with a 72 year old aunt who lived on a small ranch where she raised five boys. After about 45 days this supposedly Autistic child was able to stay on task, speak reasonably well, could formulate whole sentences and was not acting-out. This improvement was attributed to no more than several hours a week of TV as a family event, no computer games or cartoons, plus had chores and had to play outside. The last I heard the child is making progress at a reasonable pace. I believe America’s crisis has more to do with fantasy entertainment, conveniences, laziness and inability to have a realistic/commonsense approach as a national mindset, direction and goals.
Amazing how many comments in the Times Online article had kids/parents/relatives with IQs higher than Einstein yet couldn’t talk. /sarc
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