The New Haven Independent – Josiah Brown
“Perri Klass is a pediatrician, a professor of journalism, an author of books, a columnist for the New York Times, and a longtime leader of Reach Out and Read, through which pediatricians and other medical providers around the country discuss reading with parents of young children and distribute books. Her presentation was on how “Books Build Better Brains.” Highlighting aspects of “early brain and child development” (or EBCD – “the most important thing in the world”), she emphasized that it “happens in large part through interactions and relationships,” which she underscored as “hugely important.” By reading to young children, parents or educators are teaching “responsiveness” and cultivating “routines, structures” that will help children “feel safe.” According to Dr. Klass, “Your baby will love books because your baby loves you.” She acknowledged that cognitive and social/emotional development occur “over time,” through many experiences, but we should recognize key “windows” for learning. Such learning is both positive and protective. There is a “proliferation” of “connections, of synapses” before “selective pruning” advances, for example to focus on the most useful sounds in a given language. Therefore the number of words as well as “the quality, the nature of the language” matter. In addition to citing the 1995 Hart/Risley study of the substantial “word gap” evident by age 3, correlated with a family’s socioeconomic status (SES), Dr. Klass mentioned a 2013 Stanford study by Anne Fernald et al. that found a 6-month disparity in children’s “processing speed” by age 24 months – that is, the average “higher SES” child of 18 months could process language at the speed of the average “lower SES child” of 24 months.”(more)