Rob's Thoughts

Vocabulary - the Trajectory of Development

The Big IdeaThe message of the Early Years is that we are most capable of learning until the age of 6. Underpinning this message is the idea of "plasticity". This is not news. What might become news is if we find out what to do with this knowledge.

For the problem is that we have not known what to do about this knowledge. We have not known how to move from concept to action? Until now.

We believe that the research has now come together to provide us with a clear direction and a clear focus. If we focus on the acquisition of vocab by the age of 2 and its drivers the amount and quality of conversation and the amount and timing of touch we believe that we will have resolved the gigantic complexity of the early years into a field narrow enough yet powerful enough to get movement. This series of articles will explore this proposition and link the separate areas of research into a coherent and self supporting whole.

The trajectory of vocab
Our brains and our world view are open to many choices at birth but by 3 many of the alternatives and the trajectory for our future development is largely set. By the age of 2 the size of our vocabulary will indicate how we will be able to learn all the way through school.

This slide shows us a dramatic picture. Vocab is a powerful and measurable predictive factor. If we measure an infant's ability to understand vocabulary at 2 we can get a strong sense of the development trajectory for life. Much of the research now informs us that by 4 the vocab trajectory is largely set. Infants with a vocab of 150 or less will normally develop on a very shallow trajectory reaching by grade 10 an ability of grade 5. At the other end of the scale, infants with a vocab of 300 words will be on track for an exponential trajectory leading to a vocab of a 2nd year university student in grade 10.

This revelation about the predictive power of vocab attainment raises the issue of the idea of Trajectories and when they are able to be influenced. Chaos theory tells us that "Initial Conditions" are the most powerful element in how systems unfold. It is likely that vocab attainment in the Early Years represents the measure of the Initial Conditions of human development.

The impact of this ideaThis insight has huge implications for how we as a society consider our current investment in the education system that begins age 6. We have enormous faith in schools - after all we all went to them and they have become the centrepiece of how we "see" education. But as we begin to understand the idea of trajectories for learning and for behaviour School Readiness takes on a new importance. Why is this so important? Because we are finding it very difficult to alter trajectories in school once they are set. US data suggest that even the application of extraordinary resources in school cannot change the shape of the development curve. The main work has to be done before our children arrive in school.

So we have quite a shock. We have thought that our schools were going to be the key to our children's future and we find that it is our job as parents.

Our development in the Early Years is not only confined to our ability to learn. Our world view is set then as well which sets up our norms for behaviour and the boundaries for our coping skills. Consequently, many of the drivers for our future health, such as the capacity of our immune system, are also laid down in this period as well. By 4 we will have acquired life-long eating preferences that will be hard to change throughout life. By 4 our athletic skills and our desire to take exercise will largely be set.

So we are beginning to understand that the Early Years encompass issues that extend beyond literacy to include obesity and activity: in fact for a health trajectory for life as well. As with schools, we currently pour most of our society's resources into a healthcare system that does its best to fix an ever expanding litany of chronic disease such as type 2 diabetes, complications from inactivity and poor diet etc. Many of our addictive behaviours such as smoking are also strongly influenced by world view and family culture. It is clear that the trajectory for much of the chronic illness we suffer from today is set in the Early Years. Fixing poor life time habits is an exceptionally challenging job for both the individual and for the healthcare system. The only time that we are plastic enough to set habits is when we are very young.

This is the responsibility of really understanding the meaning the Early Years. Our core experiences as humans that set up these trajectories occur inside the culture of our immediate family.

It's all about culture and how and when we transmit itHumans are cultural beings. All other animals use biology to adjust to shifting environments. Humans use culture. While humans are enormously en-cultured by their larger society, we are set up as individuals on a cultural path by the powerful interactions within the culture of of family when we are infants. So the best time to intervene is very early and the best people to make the difference are parents

This is scary news for parents. Scary because, until now, we did not know how powerful our interaction with our children would be. Scary because we thought that it was school that was going to make the big difference in learning. Scary because we thought that our doctor was going to keep us well. Scary because we don't know how to respond to this challenge. We thought that if we kept our children clean and safe and taught them how to behave that would be enough - society would teach our children and keep them well.

In this context, what then do we have to know as parents to best prepare our children in the first 4 years of life? What might be the 1-3 simple things a parent could do that would help the most? It surely cannot be the 100 things. These things must be simple as well.

If we can find out what are the 1-3 things that would make a large difference in how parents interacted with their children, how could society itself get behind parents to help in this work? Then what practical things could policy makers consider when seeking to improve overall societal development outcomes? And finally what could researchers focus on that would enable them to see if what we were all doing would be worthwhile?

The social and economic context for this workHow important is it to find these answers anyway? Maybe it is just a few poor Canadians that have the problem? Regretfully not. We now know that the largest group of Canadians whose children are having development problems are middle class.

The chart shows the relationship between understanding vocab and income. We see that there are many children from poor families that are doing well and that the majority of children that are not doing well come from middle class income brackets. The "bottom line" in the slide is that fact that poor development is not confined to welfare mums. We are all involved. Wilms' great insight which is supported by Hart and Risley is that family culture is the egg and family income is the chicken. It is the behaviour and attitude of the parents that en-cultures the infant and sets the infant up on a series of trajectories.

The stakes are high and time is short. In particular for Atlantic Canada where we do not have the benefit of high immigration rates and high birth rates. On PEI 42% of adults can only read at a level 3. 17% of Islanders cannot read. Consequently most Islanders cannot participate in the complexity of the modern economy. PEI and most of Atlantic Canada do not have enough high quality human capital to solve our social and economic problems.

PEI's future, in fact the future of Atlantic Canada is irrevocably linked to our being able to raise most of our children so that they have the best potential to learn and to cope. Finding ways to improve the developmental outcomes of all our children is therefore a strategic necessity. We have a generation to shift these challenging numbers or we risk missing the chance of being viable in the 21st century

Is there hope? Do we know what might be the 1-3 things that parents could know and act upon that would make a difference. The answers to these questions are yes and yes

To be continued in the "Keys to the Kingdom"

And then in Building the NetworkTBA

The Keys to the Kingdom - Words, Touch and Culture

What is the power of the Vocab Trajectory? It compresses all the huge complexity of all the interactions and gives us one measure that tells us in the right time frame where we are and what more we need to do.

When they were building the Confederation Bridge, the project manager and the funders demanded a set of measurements that would enable them to see if they had the full complexity of the project in hand and to let them know if they were on track to complete on time. They had the same problem as we do in measuring the impact of many complex factors and interactions on the Early Years. They chose one measure. The Foot Poured of Concrete per Day. Why? Because to pour a foot of concrete, everything prior to that had to have been completed. The full complexity of all the hundreds of interrelated steps had to have been pulled off well. Foot poured would also give the engineers and funders a clear view of the trajectory of the work. They could still change elements in the mix to get them back on track. This is the power of the Vocab measure.

What do we know about the key elements that give a high score on vocab at age 2? We know that it is largely determined by three factors. The most important is the number of words heard in conversation by the infant. The second is how much the infant was touched. The last was the quality of the interaction between the parent and the infant.

Hart and Risley - Meaningful Differences in the Every Day Experience of Young American Children has explored the words and culture aspect of this driver. Here is the core finding. The brain and outlook of infants is moulded by the experience of language itself. Like any moulding experience cumulative experience counts.

The amount of words heard and the Impact on the Brain and Consciousness
By 4 the children in the Professional Family group had heard an accumulation of 50 million words. The Welfare family children had heard only about 10 million. A 40 million word difference! By 4, the language pathway has almost closed and while a child that has heard only 10 million words can speak, it lives mainly in an instrumental world. Its ability to perceive the symbolic world, which is now the core of our society,  is very small and the opportunity to add back 40 million words is not possible. Many 4 year olds from a high talk family have a wider vocab than the parents of the welfare child! The last meaningful time to intervene is at 2. The best time to intervene is at birth.

Of all the developmental factors, H & R and Wilms feel that the amount of language heard in conversation is the single most important driver for opening learning pathways. I emphasize in conversation. The context for hearing is relationship. Humans connect with each other in two ways by touch and by conversation. Dunbar makes the case that language development itself was an extension of primate grooming over distance. Babies do not hear TV, they hear their mothers in a dance of intimacy.

There are some qualitative issue as well.

There is a very large cultural gap embedded in vocab which is the nature of the discourse. Wilms's research is clear. That Authoritative family culture - nice but firm is the most effective. This slide shows the significant difference between cultures in the positive aspects of discourse.

Families in an instrumental world tend to focus language on the does and don'ts - mainly on the don'ts with little or no context or interaction. They "see" their children as objects or instruments to be cleaned, fed and controlled. They themselves are often objects in the workplace whose destiny and welfare is objectively "managed" by a larger parental figure such as a boss or the government. No one consults them or asks their opinion. They are not trusted and have no public power.

Recent tragedies such as Columbine have been centred in middle class settings. What is going on there?  Many middle class parents both working full time are exhausted and feel guilt. While they have the symbolic verbal skills, they have lost the energy to form strong attachments. They too may have been captured by the instrumental world of a bureaucracy. They have become objects as well and risk being "corporate" at home which then becomes a task centred culture. They may react to their circumstances by being very permissive and not providing enough structure. They may have a nanny from the developing world who will seek the easy life and be permissive or be inattentive and allow TV to be the primary interactive agent. The nanny may herself come from an instrumental culture where the instrumental aspect of care overshadows the emotional and connective aspects of the underlying relationship and the need for conversation.

The issue of development in the early years at its deepest level appears to be framed in terms of the parent child relationship which is in turn framed by the culture of the parent. We pass on our culture to our children when they are most impressionable - when they are new born and until the age of 3-4.

In the context of the trajectory and words, touch and culture, what might be the big 3 items that would empower parents to ensure that their children have the best potential to learn and grow though life?

1. The power of having lots of the optimal conversation with our infants which includes lots of reading

2. The power of  high touch  especially in the first 6 months of life - which includes breast feeding and lots of reading

3. The Power of seeing these two pathways in the context of a deep attachment with the child where the parent develops an authoritative family culture for the family

How then could we help all parents obtain this insight and how could we help them obtain the skills?

We are recommending that we design and build a network system of knowledge that supports each family in a way that suits the unique needs of each family best. How might we do this?

See Building the Network for the final section of this paper.

 

The Vocab Trajectory - Predictive Power

What do these trajectories look like and are there any gender issues that may help explain why boys are struggling today?

Here is Doug Wilms team's views on this chart taken from their recent proposal

Most children say their first few words at around 12 months of age. It is an exciting time, as it is soon followed with more words, and then an exponential growth in vocabulary. However, the pace of development differs among children, and depends on their environment. Huttenlocher et al. (1998) conducted detailed studies of children’s vocabulary development from 12 to 26 months of age. Their work demonstrates the importance of understanding children’s growth trajectories.

Figure 2 displays the trajectories for 26 of the children they observed. The solid black line represents the average growth trajectory, while the red and green lines depict the trajectories for girls and boys respectively. A multilevel analysis of these data revealed that these children varied significantly in their rates of vocabulary growth, and that about 20% of this variation was associated with the quantity of mothers’ speech. Also, the frequency with which mothers used particular words was strongly related to the age at which children acquired those words.

This research and similar work by Hart and Risley (1995) provide strong evidence of the importance of both the quantity and quality of parental speech.

The next slide comes directly from Hart and Risley's work and confirms the data that Wilms was looking at.

The final slide in this series comes from What's Going on in There - How the brain and mind develop in the first 5 years of life By Lise Eliot. The data set (p 380) comes from work by L Fenson et al in a monograph of the Society for Research in Child development 59 (5) 1994. It shows the same track now broken up by gender

Hart and Risley have tested the predictive power of this trajectory and have found a strong correlation between vocab at 2 and language skill at age 9-10 (p 160-168)

"We conclude that these variables are not simply marker variables denoting social class or subculture but are powerful characteristics of everyday parenting that cause important outcomes in children....everyday parenting in the individual family was predictive of the accomplishments of the child>"