We recently spoke with Dr. Dana Suskind, founder and director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative, about what inspired her to become an expert on early language development. She also shares some advice on how families can support young children to develop language skills.
Dr. Suskind will give the keynote address at our annual Make It Your Business lunch, on April 12. Register today to attend and hear more about her work with young children.
Dr. Suskind is professor of surgery and pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medicine and co-author of Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain. For nearly ten years, she has been committed to closing the opportunity gap by creating language programs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
CI: Describe how the famous 1995 study by researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley inspired the Thirty Million Words Initiative. Were its findings born out in your own pediatric work?
Dr. Suskind: I began my surgical career as a pediatric head and neck surgeon specializing in cochlear implantation. I soon discovered that even a successful cochlear implant didn’t always mean future success for the child in learning to speak or understand language. It was the same surgery, the same gift of hearing, but it had dramatically different results. My search to understand why led me to the concept of the 30-million-word gap. In their seminal research, Hart and Risley found that children of lower socioeconomic status heard about 30 million fewer words by their fourth birthday than their more affluent peers. This profound disparity has a negative impact on everything from literacy and spatial relations, school readiness and academic attainment, to self-regulation and grit. When I took the Hippocratic Oath as a pediatric surgeon, I understood that it meant my obligation to my patient didn’t end when I finished operating; it ended when my patient was well. I knew it was time for me to step out of the comfortable world of the operating room into the wider world of social science in order to truly effect a change for our nation’s children. That is what led to the Thirty Million Words Initiative.
CI: We know that parents are a child’s first teacher. Can you explain the role parents/families play in a child’s first few years?
Dr. Suskind: The most important thing any parent can do for their children is have conversations with them, starting the day they are born. Genetics supplies the blueprints for our potentials, but reaching that potential is largely determined by how much parents talk and interact with their children in the first three years of life. Parent responsiveness and the quantity and quality of parent-child interactions are critical for a child’s optimal brain development. Creating a rich early language environment involves using greater variation in vocabulary, more syntactic complexity, asking open-ended questions, and eliciting a child’s response.
CI: Your background and continued role as a physician while leading this initiative brings to light a focus for the Children’s Institute: the connection between health and learning for young children. From your perspective, do healthy development and education go hand in hand? If so, how?
Dr. Suskind: Absolutely. Language is a social determinant of both health and educational outcomes. Brain research reveals that 85 percent of physical brain development occurs in the first three years of life, but much of that brain development is caregiver dependent. Without sufficient social nutrition (i.e., rich language environments, parent-child attachment, caregiver responsiveness and adult-child exchange), the vast potential of the brain is diminished and the rate of learning and intellectual capacity severely curtailed. Brain research further reveals that the impact of early language environments and parent-child relationships are far-reaching, affecting social-emotional development and the development of regulatory and executive function skills that impact long-term well-being. Current research demonstrates long-term health benefits from early childhood interventions, including the significantly lower prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, such as stroke and diabetes, in participants thirty years post-intervention. The stimulation, or lack thereof, that all children experience in their earliest years affects not only their educational trajectories, but their long-term health and well-being as well.
CI: How would you advise families who aren’t part of the initiative to learn from what you’re finding? What can they do on their own?
Dr. Suskind: The most important — and astoundingly simple — thing you can do for your child’s future success in life is to talk to him or her. We recommend using the following strategies, known as the 3Ts: Tune In, Talk More, and Take Turns. Tune In is about making a conscious effort to notice, focus, and respond to what your child is communicating. A child who receives constant Tuning In is likely to stay engaged longer, initiate communication, and ultimately, learn more easily. Talk More is focused on building your child’s vocabulary with descriptive words. Take Turns is the most valuable for a child’s developing brain. You want to engage your child in a conversational exchange. Using open-ended questions or asking a simple “how” or “why” allows your child to respond with a wide range of words, thoughts, and ideas.
CI: What role can schools and teachers, health care providers, and child care providers play in helping young children succeed?
Dr. Suskind: We all play an important role. Language impacts children’s social-emotional development as much as it shapes their intellectual capacity. When teachers and practitioners take turns talking with children, they model important social skills: listening, waiting for the response, expanding upon what was said, asking clarifying questions, among others. Research reveals that when learning a task happens in person — and not via a digital device — children are able to imitate the action with little or no difficulty. Children’s brains learn best from social interaction.
CI: What should the federal government or state governments be doing? Are there public policies that would help Thirty Million Words or similar interventions be replicable throughout the nation?
Dr. Suskind:National leaders need to understand that learning begins on the first day of life, not the first day of school. Far too often our efforts have focused on remediation rather than prevention, with only isolated pockets of success. We need to proactively intervene in the earliest years, beginning at birth, and ensure children’s optimal brain development as the foundation for future success in life. We need everyone to help spread this important message to more parents, educators, and policy makers.