'Three T's' uses words to feed toddlers' brains

Shurand Adams' daughter Teshyia just started kindergarten, but the 5-year-old already is learning to read independently and "picking things up quickly," her mom says.

Adams, 27, of Calumet City, Ill., gives a lot of credit to three things she's been doing with her daughter since Teshyia was about 18 months old.

"It's the three T's," she says: "Tune in, talk more and take turns."

That's the mantra of the Thirty Million Words initiative, an experimental effort to build young brains with words. The program gets its name from a study published in the 1990s that found children in low-income homes heard 30 million fewer words by age 3 than children in high income homes. They also heard a smaller variety of words and fewer words of encouragement. And those differences in language exposure had an apparent effect: Children from word-poor homes ended up with smaller vocabularies and worse school performance.

Subsequent research has shown that the word gap – and other differences in how parents talk with young children – can exist in families of any socioeconomic status, but that, on average, poor children are most at risk.

"Not having money in your pocket has never made a brain not grow," says Dana Suskind, a University of Chicago surgeon who founded the Thirty Million Words project. But little brains do need words to grow, she says: "In the beginning, the food for the developing brain is language and interaction."

In a new book, Thirty Million Words: Building a Child's Brain, Suskind says she first encountered the apparent effects of the word gap among deaf children she treated with cochlear implants. In general, she says, those from poorer homes struggled much more to develop language and other skills. Her hope is that teaching parents and other caregivers to talk more, and talk more effectively, will help all sorts of children reach their potential.

Her project and others like it are now expanding, though research on their impact remains preliminary.

Adams was among parents who participated in a pilot study in which coaches came to homes and shared talking techniques, including the "three Ts." Children in the study spent some days wearing special recorders. The devices count every word aimed at a child and every back and forth conversation between child and caregivers.

Preliminary results, published this year, found adult and child word counts and conversational turn-taking increased during the eight-week program. Suskind and other researchers hope future studies will show a sustained effect.

Suskind believes there's power in just convincing parents they can make a difference. "Every parent has the words, the language, the nurturance necessary to build their baby's brain," she says.

Chicago mom Rosalinda Almanza, 24, who is participating in a new, larger study with her 22-month-old daughter Dahlia, says she's convinced: "They say they more you talk, the more words you use, the smarter they get. It expands their minds."

That message is starting to reach a wider audience. In Chicago, a video about talking with newborns is now seen by the parents of every baby born at Northwestern University and University of Chicago hospitals.

Suskind's project also is working with the Chicago Children's Museum and Chicago Public Library to launch exhibits that will reach the broader public. And it is creating video segments for Word Party, a Netflix series from the Jim Henson Company due in 2016.

A larger experimental project called Providence Talks, in Providence, RI, also is expanding. That program, which included nearly 200 families in a home-visit pilot phase, aims to reach 750 new families in the next year and 2,500 families over the next two years, says executive director Courtney Hawkins.

The new phase will include group sessions for some parents and home coaching for others, Hawkins says. Researchers from Brown University will evaluate results.

In the pilot phase, parents who started with the lowest word counts, about 8,000 words a day, quickly reached 12,000 words a day – suggesting that informed parents are eager and able to raise their talking games, Hawkins says.

"It's really about families understanding that they matter in their children's education and that they matter from the first day that their children are born,"

So, just how do you talk with a baby or toddler? Try the three T's (adapted from Thirty Million Words: Building A Child's Brain):

Tune In: Notice what the child is focused on and talk about that. Respond when a child communicates – including when a baby cries or coos.

Talk More: Narrate day to day routines, such as diaper changes and tooth brushing. Use details: "Let Mommy take off your diaper. Oh, so wet. And smell it. So stinky!"

Take Turns: Keep the conversation going. Respond to your child's sounds, gestures and, eventually, words – and give them time to respond to you. Ask lots of questions that require more than yes or no answers.

Other tips:

• If you are bilingual, talk to your child mostly in your native language – it will be richer. But make sure your child also is exposed to the language of her broader community (English, in the United States).

• Embrace baby talk – not made-up words, but a melodic pitch, positive tone and sing-song rhythm.

• Read to your child. Even babies benefit.