Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children

Book excerpt: Taking on the nature vs. nurture debate, Hart and Risley studied the daily lives of 1- and 2-year-old children in American families of all socioeconomic classes. The families showed huge contrasts in the amount of interaction between parents and children--differences that translated into striking disparities in the children's later vocabulary growth rate, vocabulary use, and IQ scores. The link exists regardless of a child's race, the researchers found, offering an important answer to those such as the controversial authors of The Bell Curve who attribute intelligence to genetics. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR