tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post7982954995994473880..comments2024-02-16T08:32:46.618+00:00Comments on Donald Clark Plan B: Gross errors pass as 'research'Donald Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796341486328270474noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-47095360959725275992011-01-19T22:38:07.915+00:002011-01-19T22:38:07.915+00:00Slow down Fiona! The main oint in my post was to p...Slow down Fiona! The main oint in my post was to point to the fatuous behaviour of the leader in the field making claims on the back of a small YouGov poll - and she did.<br /><br />The US Department of Education's monumental study called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), debunked common myths about parenting. According to the ECLS, the eight factors that correlate most highly to school test scores were related to who the kids parents were (high education, high socio-economic background, mother 30 or older at the birth of first child, involvement in the PTA, child has many books at home) as opposed to what they did (move to better neighbourhood, bring the kid to museums, spanking, television viewing, or reading to one's kids). In other words, during the early years of a child, nature (which purportedly exerts 50% influence on personality) triumphed over nurture (the other 50%).<br /><br />This study is bigger, deeper and covers more variables than the tiny 42families that Hart and Risley looked at. It took 20,000 kids and their parents and it asked them an enormous range of questions and it starts at a very young age, three or four years old, and follows them so far through to third grade. What they set out to understand is: What variables in a child's background help predict how they're going to do on standardized tests? And what they found was that variables such as income and parental education, that all of those variables turn out to be quite important in terms of predicting whether kids will do well in school or not. But a whole other range of variables about parenting style, about whether you spank your kids, whether you let them watch TV, even whether you read to them, it turns out that we can't find any evidence that those kind of specific types of interactions are important for how your kids turn out. Judith Harris won no en do prizes for her wonderful research in this area as shown in The Nurture Assumption.<br /><br />And what's with the rudeness and 'In My Opinion stuff - lighten up!Donald Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00796341486328270474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-85962663702242036322011-01-19T21:55:04.694+00:002011-01-19T21:55:04.694+00:00And your response is scientifically valid?
This ...And your response is scientifically valid? <br /><br />This is a case in semantics. There is quite extensive research to prove that the amount of time spent in face to face communication with parents in the early years increases speech, language and communication skills. As you are so proficient in judging research, there is of course no need for me to reference it as you have so neatly assumed Gross's comments to be inaccurate. <br /><br />Time spent in front of the television is time that is not spent in face-to-face interactions.<br /><br />The Hart and Risley (1995) study suggests that your hypothesis that speech and language deficits relate to working parents is a lazy one. This study involved 2 1/2 years of intense observation of the language of 42 families throughout Kansas City. Specifically, they looked at household language use in three different settings: 1) professional families; 2) working class; 3) welfare families. Hart and Risley gathered an enormous amount of data during the study and subsequent longitudinal follow-ups to come up with an often cited 30 million word gap between the vocabularies of welfare and professional families by age three. This number came from the data that showed welfare children heard, on average, 616 words per hour, while children from professional families (essentially children with college educated parents) heard 2153 words per hour. The longitudinal research in the following years demonstrated a high correlation between vocabulary size at age three and language test scores at ages nine and ten in areas of vocabulary, listening, syntax, and reading comprehension. Professional families worked too. Welfare families worked least (obviously). So not likely to relate simply to parents working out of the home, I would say. In My Opinion.Fiona Healy O'Neillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11955313027097489199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-23847236285809652452010-01-05T14:00:28.654+00:002010-01-05T14:00:28.654+00:00Good question - this is what the research needs to...Good question - this is what the research needs to uncover, rather than simply pinning the blame on things middle-class people like/don't like.<br /><br />The fact that both parents are simply 'not there' seems like a reasonable hypothesis to test, as it's easy to isolate this variable. Other techniques can be used to measure f2f time.Donald Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00796341486328270474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-88876333553971626942010-01-05T13:41:25.928+00:002010-01-05T13:41:25.928+00:00*Do* families in which both parents work spend con...*Do* families in which both parents work spend considerably less time in face to face communication with their children? Is that an anecdotal or evidence-based statement?Janet Clareyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00365206004980105033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-83559379605886200232010-01-05T13:11:48.284+00:002010-01-05T13:11:48.284+00:00I used to wish I could get mine to shut up!I used to wish I could get mine to shut up!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02808508494613360369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-53952333325368982952010-01-05T11:17:52.851+00:002010-01-05T11:17:52.851+00:00Dear mr. Clark,
I've read your post with full...Dear mr. Clark,<br /><br />I've read your post with full interest. I'd like to ask you some questions about this mrs. Gross, the survey and your opinion. <br />This is because we're Dutch students fact-checking newsitems and I am doing some research about this survey.<br />Could you please reply or mail me?<br />Thanks!<br />Michiel Bouwman<br />HollandUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15586851920928909482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-31245593830945964852010-01-05T10:23:13.421+00:002010-01-05T10:23:13.421+00:00There is in fact lots of good evidence from studie...There is in fact lots of good evidence from studies on Sesame Street etc that show considerable educational advantages for certain TV programmes. I have certainly seen my own children laugh, sing, count, speak and intearct with good children's TV programmes. It would seem that the only valid form of entertainment for the chattering classes is reading Narnia and nursery tales to their children.Donald Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00796341486328270474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-7420839128436709922010-01-05T09:55:51.029+00:002010-01-05T09:55:51.029+00:00My thoughts on reading the stories about tv were t...My thoughts on reading the stories about tv were the same as yours. The reason some children are slow to talk is not because they watch tv (which, after all, is full of people talking), but because their parents don't talk to them.<br /><br />I also wonder whether these people have watched children watching tv. In my experience, kids who watch tv tend to do so interactively - dancing along to the Teletubbies, incorporating the characters in their own play and so on. I think a fairly crucial distinction is whether the children are watching programmes that are designed for children or whether they're watching any old rubbish that happens to be on.Kim Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14132751876448735023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-3065373603774128532010-01-04T17:48:04.085+00:002010-01-04T17:48:04.085+00:00I remember when the fashion was to say that TV mad...I remember when the fashion was to say that TV made children violent. There was one burke who wanted to ban cartoons like Tom and Jerry.<br /><br />The children of that generation are now mainly adults. I wonder whether they worry/complain about how much time children are spending playing computer games.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02808508494613360369noreply@blogger.com