[Yobbo]

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/family-income-linked-to-child-language-skills-study-20090213-86u8.html

Children who communicate using a wide variety of gestures at the age of 14 months have a much larger vocabulary at age four-and-a-half, and fare much better in school, a study said.

Researchers from the University of Chicago worked with 50 Chicago-area families with different social backgrounds, filming children and their careers during ordinary activities at home for 90-minute sessions. The study, published in the journal Science, found that "differences in child gesture could be traced to differences in parent gesture."

On top of that, psychologist Meredith Rowe said the study found that socioeconomic status differences are clearly evident in the initial stages of language learning. Fourteen-month-old children from "high-income, well-educated families used gesture to convey an average of 24 different meanings," said the researchers in a statement. Same-aged children from lower-income families conveyed only 13 different meaningful gestures. The differences continued on into the child's command of vocabulary in school, the study said.

"Child gesture could play an indirect role in word learning by eliciting timely speech from parents, for example, in response to her child's point at a doll, mother might say 'yes, that's a doll,' thus providing a word for the object that is the focus of the child's attention," the authors wrote in the report. Vocabulary is a "key predictor of school success and is a primary reason why children from low-income families enter school at a greater risk of failure than their peers from advantaged families," said co-author Susan Goldin-Meadow.

Vocabulary (including gestures as this study has done) is the best single predictor of IQ. As this study has shown, high income children are more likely to have a greater vocabulary than lower class before they enter schooling.

How can this be if all are equal? Greater nannying rates and overall higher quality parenting amongst the rich and or a general IQ difference amongst class. I would think it is a combination of both.

[Abood]

Children of people with more money have access to better schools. Wow!

[canadiancapitalist]

Vocabulary is a measure of intelligence? I was not aware! I am trepidatious about this proposition and must utilize my rationality to ascertain it's veracity.

[albionfagan]

Vocabulary is a measure of intelligence? I was not aware! I am trepidatious about this proposition and must utilize my rationality to ascertain it's veracity.

I wish we could rate posts

[Abood]

Lol. Witty.

[Potemkin]

...utilize my rationality to ascertain its veracity.

Fixed.

[Yobbo]

Children of people with more money have access to better schools. Wow!

Fourteen-month-old children

Vocabulary is a measure of intelligence? I was not aware! I am trepidatious about this proposition and must utilize my rationality to ascertain it's veracity.

Knowledge != Intelligence

[guzzipat]

Knowledge != Intelligence

Wrong equation, it doesn't make sense.

You could say "The effective application of knowledge=inteligence". In fact the real equation is "Inteligence=the ability to reason". That is why IQ tests are constructed the way they are.

If I learn a book by heart it is knowledge, even though I might not have clue what it meant and lacked the intelligence to apply any of that knowledge.

[Yobbo]

You could say "The effective application of knowledge=inteligence". In fact the real equation is "Inteligence=the ability to reason". That is why IQ tests are constructed the way they are.

If I learn a book by heart it is knowledge, even though I might not have clue what it meant and lacked the intelligence to apply any of that knowledge.

I wholly agree with this!

Wrong equation, it doesn't make sense.

This was just a description that intelligence is strictly not knowledge (which is true), in response to cc's vacuous comment apparently trying to prove something .

[QatzelOk]

Fourteen-month-old children from "high-income, well-educated families used gesture to convey an average of 24 different meanings," said the researchers in a statement.

This looks like a result of reporting.

Perhaps rich 14-month olds are more used to communicating with strangers since they spend so much time in daycare and with their nannies. These children would "open up" to reporters more than kids who grow up in front of the television set in a poor household.

In the meantime, let's stop letting the rich define intelligence and virtue.