<html>
<body>
Thanks to everyone who responded to my query about the amount of time in
conversation that parents spend with their children. <br><br>
The most oft cite resource was: <br>
Hart, B. & Risley T. (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday
Experience of Young American Children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.<br><br>
This is the reference that talks about the striking number of different
words children hear, and extrapolates the amount of language experience
children from different SES backgrounds hear. <br><br>
In addition, <br>
I received 2 other citations:<br>
Bogaerde, E.M. van den (2000). Input and Interaction in Deaf Families,
2000, Utrecht: LOT (wwwlot.let.uu.nl)<br>
<font face="comic sans MS">Weijer, J. van de (2002).
<a href="http://www.ling.lu.se/persons/Joost/Texts/gala01.pdf">How much
does an infant hear in a day?</a> In: J. Costa and M. João Freitas
(eds.). <i>Proceedings of the GALA2001 Conference on Language
Acquisition</i> (pp. 279-282). Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de
Linguistíca.<br><br>
</font>Most studies address the issue of "how much input" with
a tally of number of words, rather than total time. (Though, I suppose
one can be converted into the other.) <br><br>
van de Weijer (2002) recorded all input to an infant in the Netherlands
for several months. This infant received about 20 minutes a day of direct
interaction with the parents and/or caregivers. However, the infant's
older sister (age 2) spent approximately 90 minutes PER DAY (60% of the
recorded data) either addressing (45 min) or being addressed by (45 min)
an adult. Since the recordings were made for the infant and not the older
sibling, it's possible that recordings of the older sibling would be
different. <br><br>
This is a 2 year old in an academic family in the Netherlands, so we
should probably be hesitant to generalize this to U.S. American families,
but it makes me all the more suspicious of the oft cited "38.5
minutes" PER WEEK of "meaningful conversation" with
parents. (The author of that figure has clearly never driven home with my
son!)<br><br>
Lynn<br><br>
<font face="comic sans MS">Thanks to:<br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica">Shanley Allen,<br>
Annick De Houwer<br>
Laura DeThorne<br>
Eve V. Clark<br>
Lois Bloom<br>
John N. Bohannon III<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
Linda Cote<br>
Beppie van den Bogaerde<br>
Diane Pesco<br>
Gedeon De</font>á<font face="Arial, Helvetica">k<br><br>
</font><font face="comic sans MS">Apologies to anyone I've forgotten - -I
had a massive e-mail failure this week and am slowly reconstructing the
missing links.<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Original Query:<br>
Does anyone have figures or references as to a rough amount of time that
parents spend in conversation with preschool and school age
children?<br><br>
I have read numerous places (mostly parenting type publications or web
sites) that "the average American parent spends 38.5 minutes a week
with their child in meaningful conversation". Having read this EXACT
same figure over and over again, I became suspicious and began to search
for the source. If they give a source, it's always "American Family
Research Council. "Parents Fight 'Time Famine'as Economic Pressures
Increase." 1990."<br><br>
I cannot, however, track down the original article (nor can I seem to
find the American Family Research Council, though it may be part of a
conservative political group of some sort).<br><br>
Does anyone have any reliable references/data on how much parents do
converse with children (leaving aside the "meaningful" issue,
which is, at best, difficult to operationalize)?<br><br>
I remember the work in differences in communication for different
socioecomonic levels (though I couldn't cite it or find it off hand), and
somewhere I remember seeing a figure comparing Philadelphia (Jewish?)
families with Pennsylvania Dutch families, but can't find the
reference.<br><br>
Exact citations or directions to look in would be appreciated.<br><br>
Thanks<br><br>
Lynn</blockquote><br><br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
***************************************************************************************<br>
Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. <br>
Associate Professor, Applied Linguistics<br>
Portland State University<br>
P.O. Box 751<br>
Portland, OR 97201-0751<br>
phone: 503-725-4140<br>
fax: 503-725-4139<br>
e-mail: santelmannl@pdx.edu (that's last name, first initial)<br>
web:
<a href="http://www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls" eudora="autourl">
www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls<br>
</a>
*******************************************************************************</body>
</html>