Parent talk and child language
© www.CartoonStock.com There's been a lot in the media lately about the impacts of parental talk on children's language development. Some of it has been opinion, as in this piece in the Daily Telegraph , in which the headline proclaimed that children were "starting school unable to speak". This reflected the views of a head teacher, who claimed that the proportion of children with poor language skills had increased in his lifetime, and that this was the fault of parents who did not have time to talk to their children any more. There is nothing new here: versions of this story pop up every few years or so (here's one from 200 3, and a blogpost on another case from 2011): Editors know that stories about feckless parents sell newspapers: readers love the sense of complacency and moral superiority they induce. But there is also more evidence-based stuff. Some children do have serious difficulties mastering spoken language, and there is research demonstrating links...