Relying on the 30 Million Word Gap To Shape Early Childhood Policy

Almost 25 years ago, Betty Hart and Todd Risley published a groundbreaking study identifying a 30 million gap between the words heard by poor children and wealthy children by the time they are three. Since then, early childhood advocates have based research, school, and community initiatives and, local, state, and federal policies on the study’s findings, emphasizing the need to educate low-income parents about exposing children to rich language and frequent direct communication and to coach them on how best to do so. Initiatives such as the Clinton Foundation’s Too Small to Fail and increases in Head Start and Early Head Start funding linked to the “word gap” have elevated the study’s findings, and its implications, to the national stage. In fact, the findings have been cited more than 8,000 times.

While the study has faced criticism over the years, a new study released this April - which attempted and failed to replicate its findings - has caused quite a stir. Similar to Hart and Risley’s study, the new study, by Sperry, Sperry, and Miller, Reexamining the Verbal Environments of Children from Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds, consisted of longitudinal observations of young children from various socio-economic statuses interacting with family members at home. Contrary to the original study, however, the Sperry study found substantial variation in vocabulary environments within each socioeconomic stratum and that when interactions with multiple caregivers (rather than primary only) and bystander talk were included in the evaluation, the number of words low-income children were exposed to increased dramatically and in some cases, eliminated the existence of any deficit.

The failure to replicate the original results confirmed for many what they already believed to be true – that Hart and Risley got it all wrong. The study sample was too small, they said, with just 42 families included. And the methods left room for miscalculations and invited opportunities for racial, cultural, and linguistic bias. When it came to judgements of language quality and communication type, those aligned with white middle-class ways of speaking were rated more positively.

But defenders of the 30-million-word gap insist that the original study proved something they already knew to be true – that the home is the primary place where early language development occurs and low-income children are at a disadvantage. Notably, they do not believe that the new study negates that of the original. The new study is not in fact a replication, advocates say; noting that the original study compared a high-income “professional” group to a low-income “welfare” group whereas Sperry and colleagues compare low- and middle-class families. These scholars also argue that the research does not support Sperry and colleague’s claim that bystander talk – the variable that largely swung the pendulum the other way – supports language development.

The authors of both studies agree that language development in the early years is critically important. Research has shown that early language experiences are related to a host of academic and social factors.  We also know that talking to and engaging directly with children is so important. Research also tells us that there are many factors that contribute to a child’s readiness for and subsequent success in school. Something the Sperry and colleague’s study highlights, however, is that the field has yet to agree on how best to support low-income children in the first five years.