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Comment
. 2019 May;90(3):985-992.
doi: 10.1111/cdev.13128. Epub 2018 Aug 13.

Language Matters: Denying the Existence of the 30-Million-Word Gap Has Serious Consequences

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff  1 , Erika Hoff  2 , Meredith L Rowe  3 , Catherine S Tamis-LeMonda  4 , Kathy Hirsh-Pasek  5
Affiliations
Comment

Language Matters: Denying the Existence of the 30-Million-Word Gap Has Serious Consequences

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff et al. Child Dev. 2019 May.

Abstract

Sperry, Sperry, and Miller (2018) aim to debunk what is called the 30-million-word gap by claiming that children from lower income households hear more speech than Hart and Risley () reported. We address why the 30-million-word gap should not be abandoned, and the importance of retaining focus on the vital ingredient to language learning-quality speech directed to children rather than overheard speech, the focus of Sperry et al.'s argument. Three issues are addressed: Whether there is a language gap; the characteristics of speech that promote language development; and the importance of language in school achievement. There are serious risks to claims that low-income children, on average, hear sufficient, high-quality language relative to peers from higher income homes.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Monolingual children’s scores on the Quick Interactive Language Screener (QUILS) by social class (maternal education) plotted by age and by area on the QUILS. The main effect of socioeconomic status (SES) was significant, and there were no significant interactions with age or QUILS area. ***p < .0001. (From Levine, Pace, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, under review.)
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