Parenting

Why Talking To Your Child Matters, and 5 Ways to Do It

When talking to your child, both the quantity and quality of speech matter.

Written By Anna Brown

The “risks” of smartphone use have been a topic of discussion for some time. A recent study highlighted that smartphone use may impact mothers’ communication with their children. Evidence suggests that phone use can cause a 16 percent drop in the words mothers speak per minute compared to when they aren’t on their phones. Shorter phone use of just 1 to 2 minutes saw a 26 percent word reduction.

Smartphones are integral to daily life as tools for navigation, payments, and connecting with our social networks. Parents are often reminded of their importance in helping their child learn language. Striking a balance between reducing smartphone use and engaging with your child can be challenging for parents. The new research above is likely to leave busy parents asking: If I speak 16 percent less, does that mean my child’s language development will be worse by 16 percent?

Researchers have investigated similar questions when 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.

Quantity of Speech

Researchers define the quantity of speech as the amount of speech the child hears. More specifically, how much speech is directed at the child, overheard in conversation, or from television and other digital media.

One of the most famous studies on the quantity of parents’ speech was conducted by Betty Hart and Todd Risley in 1995. They observed 42 families and measured how much speech the families’ children heard. They found that by the age of 3 years, children from wealthier families had heard about 30 million more words than kids from less affluent backgrounds. This observation started important policy discussions and inspired interventions to increase how much parents speak to their children. The “30-million gap” was derived from counting words a child hears in an hour, which doesn’t accurately reflect their first three years, and the number is an overestimation.

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

Using LENA, research has shown that the more words parents direct at their children, the greater their children’s vocabulary growth. Back-and-forth verbal exchanges between the child and adult are particularly powerful for strengthening children’s language skills. The study also found that overheard speech (e.g., adult-to-adult conversation or television speech) had a smaller impact on language development than direct parent-child interactions.

Quality of Speech

Quality of speech is more complex and diverse in meaning than quantity. Yet, quality of speech may be even more crucial for 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 both parent and child are engaged in the conversation. The more involved the child and parent are, the better the child will listen and learn. Engaged interaction creates great opportunities for parents to expand on what the child says.

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

Quality can also mean the quality of the vocabulary and grammar used within speech. Parents use varying vocabularies; some have a wide range of sophisticated words, while others have a smaller range and use the same words. As a child develops language, using a range of different words becomes more important than hearing the same words many times over.

What Is More Important, Quality or Quantity?

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

1. Take their lead: Even if a child wants to read the same story on repeat, although it may seem tedious, take their lead and engage in activities they are interested in.

2. Narrate the everyday: Talk about everything you do, such as making dinner, bathtime, and food shopping. This is a great way to introduce new vocabulary to the child while completing everyday tasks.

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

4. Model the answer: As children learn 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 goed to the park,” instead of saying, “No, it’s ‘went,’ not ‘goed,’” you could model the correct verb by responding, “Oh, you went to the park! That sounds like fun.”

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

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

A new study says the quick fix of using devices as digital pacifiers may hinder your child’s emotional development.

When your child is upset and on the verge of making a scene in the cereal aisle, it can be easy to fill their hands with a smartphone or tablet so you can keep filling your cart.

A new study, however, says this quick fix may hinder your child’s emotional development.

Canadian and Hungarian researchers followed 265 Canadian families with preschool-aged children for a year, looking at three aspects of self-regulation, a skill children develop in early childhood.

The researchers looked at anger management, or how a child handles feelings of anger and frustration; effortful control, the ability to focus and regulate behavior; and impulsivity, which is how quickly they act without thinking.

The families completed a questionnaire that assessed their media use, child behavior and parenting stress at the start of the study and again a year later.

The results showed that greater use of devices as digital pacifiers had a negative effect on children’s self-regulation skills and prevented them from dealing with emotions on their own.

Parents who frequently used digital devices as a calming tool reported having children who struggled to manage their anger and exhibited less ability to focus and self-regulate.

Children with poor anger-management skills at the start of the study were more likely to have parents who were reliant on digital devices a year later, suggesting a cycle that further harms children’s long-term development.

In short: The next time your toddler throws a tantrum, think twice about handing them a device, unless you want to deal with an extra moody teen down the road. The grocery store will still be there tomorrow.

Parents Must Take Initiative

The FDOE says 75% of children who aren’t prepared for kindergarten will never catch up.

While there has been a tremendous amount of focus on public education in kindergarten through 12th grade, but the key to success starts with early childhood education.

That was one of the messages at the 2024 Florida Learners to Earners Workforce Solution Summit in Tampa.

Cari Miller is the chancellor of Early Learning at the Florida Department of Education and is charged with administering the school readiness program that provides subsidized child care for qualified families. The agency also assists families with training that helps them prepare to enter the workforce and oversees the free voluntary pre-K (VPK) program for 4-year-olds available to all Florida families.

Miller shared the sobering news that 75% of children who aren’t prepared for kindergarten will never catch up.

“That is a very powerful stat and a very powerful statement,” she told the crowd. “Good news is that (in) states with local pre-kindergarten readiness programs, is kiddos that enter those programs are more likely to be successful and enter kindergarten ready for school.”

Miller said children who participate in school readiness programs score higher on third grade language arts tests and that the programs are shown to increase high school graduation rates.

“If high school graduation matters, leaving third grade with the grade on reading skills necessary to be successful in fourth grade and beyond matters, kindergarten readiness must matter,” she said.

Miller oversees the state’s early learning school readiness child programs and the voluntary pre-kindergarten program for 4-year-olds. It’s free for all 4-year-olds regardless of a family’s income level. 

The state works to ensure that the programs are high quality. The Gold Seal analyzes the quality of the child care program and rewards providers that go above and beyond minimum program standards. Gold Seal homes get higher reimbursement rates. There also is the Class Designation, which measures quality at the classroom level, she said.

“These are two ways of measuring quality, both are critically important,” she said.

There are 30 early learning coalitions around the state that help parents navigate the early childhood learning system.

Additionally, there is a new portal that will provide info about all child care providers and K-12 schools and filter what they are looking for in their area. She likened it to using Realtor.com

“This is underway,” she said, adding that the online portal should be “birthed” soon. “We are just super excited about this coming. There’s been a lot of buildup around it,” she said.

Maria Ram extolled the benefits of the state’s school readiness programs, where she successfully enrolled two of her three young children. The subsidized program for qualifying parents flagged a speech impediment in her oldest child, now 8. She credits the recognition as a reason her son has had an IEP in school.

Prior to enrolling her oldest child in the program, Ram paid an “abuela,” or private provider, to care for her child. She said the move was costly and a financial commitment that precluded her family from saving money. Because she’s financially better off, she hasn’t been able to enroll her third child, who is nearly 3 years old, in the program.

Rep. Dana Trabulsy, meanwhile, discussed the most recent legislative changes regarding early learning and the “historic” investments that have been made. She said there was a 3% increase in the base student allocation for VPK.

“It doesn’t sound like a lot but when you are clawing your way as an early childhood education provider, 3% is a lot and it makes a big difference and these folks know how to make lemonade out of lemons for sure,” she said.

Moreover, the Legislature made a $200 million investment in reimbursement rates for providers, which she said will expand access to care.

The Legislature also created the “Summer bridge” program that will allow the children in the lowest 10th percentile to receive four hours of additional VPK education per day and a minimum of 100 hours of additional education, before heading to kindergarten.

Trabulsy said she wasn’t able to increase income eligibility for subsidized early child care but said she was “okay” with that.

“That just means our work is not done yet and that’s OK I’m happy with what we got.”