Amount of time parents spend in conversation with children per week?

[Shanley Allen]

Hi Lynn,

Joost van de Weijer did a dissertation at the MPI in Nijmegen in 1999
for which he audiotaped all the speech spoken to a prelingual child
over a period of months.  There are a couple of articles downloadable
from his website which pertain to your question:
<http://www.ling.lu.se/persons/Joost/>. His e-mail address is
<vdweijer at ling.lu.se>.

Best,
Shanley.


On May 24, 2005, at 2:11 AM, Lynn Santelmann wrote:

> Does anyone have figures or references as to a rough amount of time
> that parents spend in conversation with preschool and school age
> children?
>
> 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."
>
> 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).
>
> 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)?
>
> 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.
>
> Exact citations or directions to look in would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>
> Lynn
>
>
>
>
> ***********************************************************************
> *****
> Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Department of Applied Linguistics
> Portland State University
> P.O. Box 751
> Portland, OR 97207-0751
> Phone: 503-725-4140  Fax: 503-725-4139
> email: santelmannl at pdx.edu
> web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls
> ***********************************************************************
> ******
>
>
>
****************************************************************
Shanley Allen
Associate Professor
Department of Literacy and Language, School of Education
Program in Applied Linguistics, Graduate School
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