Foreword / Lois Bloom -- 1. Intergenerational Transmission of Competence -- 2. Sampling Children's Developmental Experience -- 3. 42 American Families -- 4. Everyday Parenting -- 5. Quality Features of Language and Interaction -- 6. The Early Experience of 42 Typical American Children -- 7. Accomplishments of the 42 Children at Age 3 and Later -- 8. The Importance of the First 3 Years of Family Experience -- 9. Intervention to Equalize Early Experience
Summary
"Meaningful Differences establishes a scientifically substantiated link between children's early family experience and their later intellectual growth - a link that exists regardless of a child's race."--BOOK JACKET. "This compelling story describes the authors' years of research as they search for the roots of intellectual disparity. Hart and Risley examined the daily lives of 1- and 2-year-old children in typical American families. They found staggering contrasts at the extremes of advantage - and within the middle class - in the amount of interaction between parents and children. These differences in the amount of early family experience translate into striking disparities in the children's later vocabulary growth rate, vocabulary use, and IQ test scores - critical measures of an individual's ability to succeed at school and in the workplace."--BOOK JACKET. "Meaningful Differences, the culmination of Hart and Risley's decades of collaboration, reveals profound effects of environment on development."--Jacket
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-226) and index
