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.
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.
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...
I believe Albert Einstein was a slow developer.
Amazing how many comments in the Times Online article had kids/parents/relatives with IQs higher than Einstein yet couldn’t talk. /sarc
I just want to confirm that here in Northern California, there is indeed a push to put kids in daycare or preschool. We have twin 2 yo toddlers, and people are constantly asking not if, but when we plan to put them in preschool. My answer is “Never!” I never went to preschool myself and I see no reason why they need to — and a thousand reasons why they shouldn’t.
Kids in our family are sitting in someones lap being read too and looking at pictures from early on. I’ll bet the biggest cause of poor language skills is disinterested parents.
Perhaps these children are not speaking out of complete shock and inability to control even the smallest things in their lives so that they feel completely helpless to change things by speaking up and realize it’s worthless to do so, anyway-—oh, wait, I must be thinking of the mindset of AMERICAN VOTERS>>>>>>
My grand-daughter will be 18 months on Jan 8. she has been taken care of by her mom, and by both her grandmothers when Mom is working.
D-I-L is Columbian and bi-lingual, her mom speaks only Spanish when Elly is with her.
Without a day of day care or any other government sponsored bullcrap - Elly is talking in full sentences already, and doing it in both english and Spanish. If fact she will point to something and say what it is in both languages, and is now teaching Paw-paw and Nana spanish.
I didn’t talk until I was seven, then one day I finally said to my parents during dinner, “I don’t like Spinach.”
Then my parents asked me, “Why did it take you so long to talk,” and I told them, “Well up to now I haven’t had any complaints.”
Great. Now my wife is getting flustered that our 20-month-old isn’t talking yet. Give kids some time before getting bent out of shape about the issue! This little girl clearly understands language well, following complex directions; my guess is she’ll just start talking whole sentences when she’s ready (soon).
Methinks the article is a statistical mess, making a big deal about vague interpretations of poorly collected data. It’s written to instill hysteria.