Talk to Your Baby

Janet & David Townend

Improving early language development leads to Bigger vocabulary Better sentence construction Earlier reading and writing readiness Readiness for learning other languages Enhanced cognitive potential

but, are babies in Tanzania getting a good enough early language experience?

Encouragements and Challenges

‘Are you sure Tanzanian mothers don’t talk to their babies?

‘Of course mothers interact with their babies…’

‘That makes complete sense to me…’ ‘Go for it!’and finally, from MoEVT “Let’s do it”

Many meetings followed.....

We went to the field

We piloted the attitude questionnaire

We taught a lesson to Standard 5, about the importance of talking to babies

We talked to groups of mothers in village churches

Now the project looks like this

Key activities (to be completed): Community-based research Focus on community reach for intervention Incorporation of learning into existing early

childhood development (ECD) provision Incorporation in curricula (primary, adult &

training of relevant professionals) Training of trainers Learning packs for self-study Information campaign

Partner organisations (so far): Inter-ministerial Task Force (3 ministries) UDOM WAMA Children in Crossfire VSO TECDEN Monduli Pastoralist Development Initiative

+ UDSM, UWEZO, World Bank, Save the Children, TAWREF, CSWD (Mafia) are getting involved

What the stakeholders are doing now Shifting ownership from volunteers to

Tanzanian stakeholders. Expressing their strong desire to bring

about behaviour change, starting now. Distributing responsibilities between

stakeholders. Following up their commitment to using

existing routes Focusing on rural poor, as the most

needy group Making progress on the key activities

Research evidence

Nobel prize winning economist and child development expert, James Heckman, wrote recently:

“Skill formation starts in the womb. The early years of a child’s life before the child enters school lay the foundations for all that follows”

Neural connections for language (Harvard University) Are established mostly in

the first year Depend upon a good language environment

Question: How many words do you think an infant in Tanzania typically hears at home in one hour?

Number of words heard

Literacy acquisition depends on language levels at 24 months (Blanden, 2006) Academic success correlates very highly with size of vocabulary at age 5 (Roulstone et al., 2011)

International researchers agree that: Language skill is central to

intellectual and social development in children (Cain & Oakhill, 2007)

Some say it is the most important factor (Harvard University)

Language development is most active in the first year of life (Ryan & Deci, 2000)

Early language experience is the most important experience for children to achieve their potential (Sylva et al., 2008)

Why start early?

Cost to benefit ratio of interventions in early education

Is highest in the first three years (Doyle et al., 2007)

This is before the start of formal education (Heckman, 2011)

What affects ECD?

What affects ECD?

Home environment is even more important than length of time at preschool

Conclusion

Parents must be their child’s first teachers

Education starts at birth

Effects of socio-economic status

The rich win on Better school readiness Larger vocabulary Fewer behaviour problems This is why Zungumza na Mtoto Mchanga must target the disadvantaged. In Tanzania, that means the rural poor.

What do we already know in Tanzania?

Anecdotal & observation evidence so far:

Little verbal interaction between parents and babies

Parents do not expect babies to need / understand language

Hardly anyone knows of the importance of early language

There is now a need for:

Baseline research to establish present language experience of babies

Attitude survey to establish current beliefs & practice about language & babies

Investigation of the effectiveness of capacity building among families

Reporting of the findings

References Harvard University Centre on the Developing Child. ‘In Brief: the

science of early childhood development’. www.developingchild.harvard.edu . 2007.

Blanden, J. ‘Bucking the trend – what enables those who are disadvantaged in childhood to succeed later in life?’. 2006. Cited in DfE/DoH ‘Supporting families in the foundation years’. London, UK: HMSO, 2011. 

Roulstone, S.et al. ‘The role of language in children’s early educational outcomes’. London, UK: DfE, 2011.

Cain, K. And Oakhill, J. ‘Children’s comprehension problems in oral and written language’. Guilford Press, 2007.

Harvard University Centre on the Developing Child. ‘In Brief: the science of early childhood development’. www.developingchild.harvard.edu . 2007. 

Ryan, R. and Deci, E. ‘Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new directions’. Journal of Contemporary Educational Psychology, vol. 25, pp. 54-67. 2000.

Sylva, K. et al. ‘Effective pre-school and primary education 3-11 project: pre-school, school and family influences on children’s development during Key Stage 2 (age 7-11)’. 2008. Cited in DfE/DoH ‘Supporting families in the foundation years’. London, UK: HMSO, 2011.

Taylor, M. ‘The politics of parenting’. In Brack, D. et al. ‘Re-inventing the state: social liberalism for the 21st Century’. 2007.  

Doyle, O. et al. ‘Early childhood intervention: rationale, timing and efficacy’. 2007.

Heckman, J. ‘The American family in black and white: a post-racial strategy for improving skills to promote equality’, 2011.