Language is that the essence of what it means to be human. Now, animals may have noises or gestures that they will communicate with, I can assure you my cat can get me up out of the bed at five o'clock within the morning because he's hungry, but citizenry are far more adept and far more facile at language. I can tell you that language within the Oxford Unabridged English Dictionary, there are 600,000 different words that Americans, that English can know. many people spoke, speak quite one language. therefore the ability of humans is gigantic, you never really and truly see a chimpanzee or a rhinoceros reading a book, but humans commonly read books, and that we understand language. Babies inherit this world acutely programmed to find out of these different words, to find out the essence of language, because language is what makes us human, and quite frankly, language is what makes us survive. there's an enormous growth spurt, an enormous increase in capacity within the brain by a minimum of a 3rd that happens within the last part of pregnancy, right before babies inherit this world. and that I can tell you that babies are hard-wired to find out different languages.
I can tell you from the maternal point of view that I experienced that in my very own life. What you're watching is that the development of language, because language is that the interaction between caretaker and baby. This experiment from the Harvard Child Development Center is about the importance of the hard-wire that's existing. this is often called the "Still Face Experiment." What happened is that the mothers are instructed to show away then turn back to the kid and have a still face. Watch what happens to the baby. What you will see happening is, first, she tries to interact. "Ah-ah," smiles, coos, points -that's to elicit a response. Points, then she coos, "Ah, ah, ah," "ma, ma, ma," then she reaches out. this is often important, this is often hard-wired. and every one of a sudden, she starts to urge frustrated, nothing is catching attention, there's this screech, "Ahhhhh." She tries to comfort herself. then she looks away, tries to disengage, makes one final, another plan to get her mother's attention. then she dissolves into hopeless crying. It's hard-wired. The Still Face Experiments are clear indicators that this is often hard-wired. So what is the importance? what is the long-term consequence of this type of biological stuff? Why is it important that a mother targeting her baby, or that a baby concentrates and demands the eye of its mother? The long-term effect of all this primitive stuff was wiped out some, I think, some quite brilliant work by Hart and Risley. and that they were experimenters who had been involved within the war on poverty.
They'd been involved within the war on poverty, and that they said, "You know, there is a problem here because we aren't seeing, with these early educational interventions, although they're good, although there are some results, we aren't seeing what we wanted to ascertain ." So, they said, "Can we glance earlier? Is there something that's happening before these babies get to kindergarten before these babies get to first grade? Is there something happening that's important?" Their work was an extreme, involved, deep observation of family life. They went into the homes of 42 families, and that they had an intense observation of these families. They checked out those families an hour a month, every single month, from the time their children were seven months aged until the top of the third year. And what they found, as by the title of my talk, wasn't what they expected. First of all, the youngsters were all well-cared-for. So it wasn't the changes within the children, the difference within the children had nothing to try to do with not having the physical needs met. Secondly, it had been not about race, it had been not about gender. And here's the key: it had been not about money. It wasn't determined by the number of toys that would be purchased by the parent. It wasn't determined by the neighborhood they lived in. It wasn't determined by the dimensions of the house they lived in. it had been determined by the interaction of the oldsters with the kid. and therefore the interaction that they saw after three years of observation was that there have been 30 million more words than those families that were identified as professional families, 30 million more words that those families, those mamas, and daddies, said to their children than the youngsters in poverty. the truth is, for those families in poverty, those parents were only saying about 600 words an hour. For the professional families, it had been over 2000 words an hour. Oh, bless your heart, I'll look out of that." "Oh, check out those toes. Aren't those toes wonderful! Oh, and appearance at that belly button. That is the cutest thing I've ever seen. you're my beloved child." Thirty million more words. That's important because neurological development of the brain, actual physical development of the brain, depends on words. whenever a word is claimed, it shoots up the neuron, it stimulates the neuron. And when that word is repeated, that very same path is stimulated again, and it'd get stronger and stronger and stronger, and it branches out so there's the potential of learning. And if those words aren't repeated, the other occurs.
Those neurons shrink and die and getaway. The scientific word is pruning. But what it means is, it decreases the power to find out. Now I've needed to tell you another thing, it isn't just hearing the words. Because babies are put ahead of televisions, it's just like the Still Face Experiment, they do not learn. they do not learn, because it's the interaction. and youngsters who are deaf can learn the language. "Thank you," in signing is language, it's symbols that mean something. It's language. So it isn't the hearing, but it is the interaction that's most vital. And it's enormously important. this is often a graph of the effect of these 30 million different words on these children. At the top of the three years, those babies that were born to welfare parents knew 500 words, while those babies within the "professional" families knew over a thousand words. It makes a difference. This whole process is language nutrition. And what it means is that language is completely important for the event of the brain. Language is that the basis from which all human learning occurs. If you think that about it, what language nutrition is, is that the development of neurons, the event of the brain is absolute, biologically hooked into language, which leads on to the power to read, which leads on to graduate from high school, which leads on to college education, or high school education. The importance of learning to read, the importance of this language nutrition, is that there have been profound effects that they observed that were long-term. It wasn't just short-term, it had been long-term.
They checked out these same children five years later, and that they found that they might tell that the gap had increased between those children. It'd gone from 500 to 1000 words to the power to pass standardized tests at third grade. And why is that benchmark so important? Third grade is vital within the whole part of human learning because up to 3rd grade you learn to read. After third grade, you read to find out. If you can't read on level by third grade, you cannot read the text, so you cannot continue. you'll never catch up. For those children who aren't reading on level by third grade, they're fourfold more likely to not be ready to graduate from high school. And remember this language nutrition model? If they can not read, they do not graduate from high school, which leads to a drag successfully in society. If you're behind in reading, there is a sixfold greater chance that you simply won't graduate from high school. That has profound implications for the state and profound implications for the individuals that are involved. there's this ranking called "American's National Health Rankings." And in those health rankings, two clusters keep me up in the dark. Two clusters that, as a state health officer, I worry about. One cluster is about infant deathrate, and prematurity, and everyone that. and that we have made some progress there; that's an interview for an additional day. the opposite cluster where they were at the very bottom of the pack, where we are at rock bottom tenth of the country, has got to do with this whole business about literacy at third grace. we've high numbers of youngsters in poverty, high numbers of failure to graduate from high school, high numbers of income disparity, lack of insurance, underemployment, unemployment. All of this caused by our lack of ability to read to the extent of third grade. Also, as a state health officer, I can tell you, that's unacceptable. it's unexpected, especially since I do know it isn't the neighborhood, it isn't the income, it isn't the genetics, it is the exposure to language, the first exposure to the language. So we are involved during a public-private partnership called "Talk with me, baby." And this is often to unravel this problem that we're here in Georgia. this is often a public-private partnership. But all of it's the same; all of it's to vary the paradigm.
For instance, The Marcus Foundation, which is one among our partners, they're involved in developing the tools to show healthcare providers, to show nurses, hospitals, and doctor show to inform their patients about this, the importance of early learning, and also the way to tell their patients the way to roll in the hay. publicly health, we are going on to the mamas, because publicly health, we have a stimulating little program called WIC. WIC is that the Women, Infant, and Child Nutrition Program. Now, WIC is different from a daily tender program. In WIC, you do not just get a touch plastic card and attend the grocery and do whatever you would like. In WIC, you've got to return to ascertain us, every three months to ascertain a nutritionist. We see this as a singular opportunity to require food nutrition, which is so important for our citizens of this state and asks them about language nutrition. We hired the Marcus Foundation to return up with some videos, and these videos are going to be played within the WIC clinics. And they'll tell these young mothers, these young needy mothers, these poverty mothers that we're going back to the first studies, about the importance of food nutrition. They'll tell these mothers the way to roll in the hay because it's not just straightforward, "Oh, ask your baby and you will be fine."
There are subtleties that you need to know, and these videos are designed to do that. It'll tell them such things as a baby is born recognizing its mother's voice, therefore when you start talking to your baby, it's when your baby is still in the womb. So this program is designed to get to all these mothers. So far, what we have done is, we want to know what works. I believe it'll work, but what we want to know is, does it work? So we have evaluated the average number of words that the children in our WIC clinic know. And we are going to start the videos, and we are going to couple it with the reinforcement - remember those every-three-month visits for pregnant women and children? We are going to reinforce that with nutrition saying to them, "Food nutrition is important, but language nutrition maybe even more important for your baby." And when that mama goes home from the WIC clinic, she's going to be taking a book. I think that ... this will change the dynamics here in Georgia. I know for a fact that it is all about language. The most important concept in the development of language. That's not much progress. I present to you, I feel the matter is we didn't search for the solution to the matter early enough, and that we didn't - we weren't including language. we've to incorporate language. Language is that the very basis of solving the matter of poverty. anticipation at the time of Christ was 20 to 30 years. anticipation for citizenry thousand years later was 20 to 30 years.
Today, you people sitting out there, your anticipation is 80 years or more. You survive birth, you survive learning to drive as an adolescent, and you've got an excellent chance of living to 80 or more. That expected change in anticipation isn't due to bypass surgery or CAT scans. Bypass surgery and CAT scans are great; they'll add a year or two. Those changes in anticipation are from clean water, and effective sewer, and vaccinations, and therefore the development of antibiotics. I can tell you that in 1900, the items that were killing us, the three killers of the citizenry in 1900, were pneumonia, TB, and diarrhea. and that I also can tell you that the items I discussed - clean water, sewers, vaccinations, antibiotics - are liable for the expected change in anticipation. I also can tell you that I think that we are on the precipice of subsequent transformational change publicly health. That transformational change, I believe, is that the deep understanding of the importance of language development, and therefore the determination that we've universal, effective, early language development.
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