Library presentation encourages 'baby talk'
The single most powerful influence on your child's future success is something that's free, easy and within your control: talking. This is the message of an upcoming parent education event hosted by the Vernon Area Public Library.
Vernon Area Public Library will host Dr. Dana Suskind of the University of Chicago on Monday, February 12, at 6:30 p.m. The founder of the Thirty Million Words® Initiative, Suskind will explain the science showing that language is the key architect of brain development in the young child. The event will be held in the West Auditorium at Stevenson High School, 1 Stevenson Drive, Lincolnshire. Free tickets are available now at http://bit.ly/SuskindFeb12.
As a pediatric surgeon, Suskind became a passionate advocate for "baby talk" through her work with cochlear implant patients - children who were profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing who regained a sense of sound through an implanted electronic device. As she followed her young patients, Suskind found that they achieved varying levels of language skills. As she gathered more information, she concluded that those with better language skills lived in households where they heard lots of words.
To explain this, Suskind points to a groundbreaking study published in 1995 by University of Kansas child psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley. After following 42 families from all socioeconomic backgrounds, Hart and Risley found that some children heard 30 million fewer words by their fourth birthdays than others. The children who heard more words were better prepared when they entered school. When followed into the third grade, these same kids had bigger vocabularies, were stronger readers and got higher test scores.
In short, the children who started ahead stayed ahead; the children who started behind stayed behind. The differentiator is the number of words a child hears between birth and age three, when 80 to 85 percent of the physical brain develops.
The realization turned Suskind into an advocate for "spreading the words." She went on to found and direct the Thirty Million Words® Initiative at the University of Chicago to promote an evidence-based program that any parent or caregiver can use with their little one to harness the power of language. Suskind asserts that all families can provide a rich language environment simply through narrating bathtime and other everyday activities.
In 2015 Suskind published "Thirty Million Words: Building a Child's Brain," explaining how to set the stage for literacy and academic success later in life. Nobel laureate James Heckman hailed the book as "a valuable 'call to words' for parents, educators and anyone invested in the success and well-being of children."
The public is invited to hear Suskind on February 12 to learn more about how to make the most of their parent-child or educator-child interactions. Her talk details "the three T's" that promote brain development and offers tips for helping children reach their full intellectual potential. Books will be available for sale and signing at the event, courtesy of The Book Stall. For more information or to obtain free tickets visit http://bit.ly/SuskindFeb12 or call 224-543-1486.