تفاوت 30 میلیونی واژه ای بین بچه های ثروتمندان و تهیدستان تا سه سالگی

اشاره: این مقاله به زودی ترجمه شده و در اختیار مخاطبان قرار خواهد گرفت.

Quality of Words, Not Quantity, Is Crucial to Language Skills, Study Finds(1)

It has been nearly 20 years since a landmark education study found that by age 3, children from low-income families have heard 30 million fewer words than more affluent children, putting them at an educational disadvantage before they even began school. The findings led to increased calls for publicly funded prekindergarten programs and dozens of campaigns urging parents to get chatty with their children.

Now, a growing body of research is challenging the notion that merely exposing poor children to more language is enough to overcome the deficits they face. The quality of the communication between children and their parents and caregivers, the researchers say, is of much greater importance than the number of words a child hears.

A study presented on Thursday at a White House conference on “bridging the word gap” found that among 2-year-olds from low-income families, quality interactions involving words — the use of shared symbols (“Look, a dog!”); rituals (“Want a bottle after your bath?”); and conversational fluency (“Yes, that is a bus!”) — were a far better predictor of language skills at age 3 than any other factor, including the quantity of words a child heard.

“It’s not just about shoving words in,” said Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University and lead author of the study. “It’s about having these fluid conversations around shared rituals and objects, like pretending to have morning coffee together or using the banana as a phone. That is the stuff from which language is made.”

In a related finding, published in April, researchers who observed 11- and 14-month-old children in their homes found that the prevalence of one-on-one interactions and frequent use of parentese — the slow, high-pitched voice commonly used for talking to babies — were reliable predictors of language ability at age 2. The total number of words had no correlation with future ability.

The idea that quality of communication matters when it comes to teaching children language is hardly new.

“Our field has been pretty consistent in recognizing all along that there has to be quality and quantity,” said Dr. Hirsh-Pasek. Even the 1995 study that introduced the notion of the 30-million-word gap, conducted by the University of Kansas psychologists Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley, found that parental tone, responsiveness and use of symbols affected a child’s I.Q. and vocabulary.

But this year’s studies are the first time researchers have compared the impact of word quantity with quality of communication. The findings, said Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl, a director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington and an author of the April study, suggest that advocates and educators should reconsider rallying cries like “close the word gap,” that may oversimplify the challenges facing poor children.

“I worry about these messages acting as though what parents ought to focus on is a word count, as though they need a Fitbit for words,” she said, referring to the wearable devices that tally steps.

The use of the word “gap” may be counterproductive, said Dr. Hirsh-Pasek. “When we talk about gaps, our natural tendency is to talk about filling them,” she said. “So we talk about the amount as if we’re putting words inside the empty head of a child.”

“But in the same way that you can’t drop the shingles and the siding for a house on the ground, you need to have the foundation there first if language isn’t going to just roll off the child’s back and become background noise.”

For the new study, Dr. Hirsh-Pasek and colleagues selected 60 low-income 3-year-olds with varying degrees of language proficiency from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a long-term, wide-ranging study of 1,300 children from birth to age 15. Other researchers reviewed video of those children at age 2 in play sessions with their parents. The researchers watching the video were unaware of how the children would later develop.

“We were able to ask whether those interactions held any clues accounting for the differences we saw at age 3,” said Dr. Hirsh-Pasek, who was an author of the long-term study. “It turned out we were able to account for a whole lot of the variability later on.”

Quality of communication accounted for 27 percent of the variation in expressive language skills one year later, she said. The results were not significantly changed when the researchers controlled for the parents’ educational level.

But those who urge parents to talk to their children more say that increased quantity of language inevitably leads to better quality.

“It’s not that one mother is saying ‘dog’ and the other is saying ‘dog, dog, dog," ” said Anne Fernald, a developmental psychologist at Stanford. “When you learn to talk more, you tend to speak in more diverse ways and elaborate more, and that helps the child’s cognitive development.

Dr. Fernald, author of a 2013 study that found a vocabulary gap between affluent and poor children as young as 18 months, is a scientific adviser to Providence Talks, a program in Providence, R.I., that outfits children with devices that record the number of words they hear each day.

“People emphasize the quantity because that’s what you can measure,” she said. But she noted that the program also sent counselors into children’s homes to more closely evaluate their exposure to language and teach parents how best to communicate with children.

Still, Ann O’Leary, director of Too Small to Fail, a joint effort of the nonprofit Next Generation and the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation that focuses on closing the word gap, acknowledged that messages to parents could do more to emphasize quality.

“When we’re doing these campaigns to close the word gap, they do capture the imagination, they do get people understanding that we do need to do a lot more talking,” she said. “But we also need to be more mindful that part of what we need to do is model what that talking looks like.”

1) این مقاله در روزنامه نیویورک تایمز در مورخه 17 اکتبر 2014 منتشر شده است و به زودی ترجمه شده و در اختیار مخاطبان گرامی قرار خواهد گرفت.   

 نوشته شده توسط علی بیدار در چهارشنبه 93/7/30 و ساعت 12:34 عصر | نظرات دیگران()

The way of real and honest people

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one"s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one"s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead. This is the substance of the way of the samurai.

 نوشته شده توسط علی بیدار در یکشنبه 93/4/29 و ساعت 12:28 صبح | نظرات دیگران()

گزارش لوس آنجلس تایمز از وضعیت اسفناک دریاچه ارومیه

Dying Lake Urmia reflects a broader problem in Iran

In the words of a former agriculture minister, water shortages are making Iran an "uninhabitable desert."

 By Ramin Mostaghim and Alexandra Sandels

An eerie and forlorn tableau greets visitors to the arid shores of this once-vast lake in Iran"s far northwest. Rusting ships sit wedged in deep black mud. Stray dogs nibble on rotting planks from long-discarded beach chairs and derelict bungalows.

Lake Urmia, long counted among the world"s largest saltwater lakes — almost 90 miles in length and stretching 34 miles at its widest point — is today a pitiful shadow of its former self.

Vast expanses of the onetime holiday haven have been transformed into stretches of sunbaked mud so solid that "pickup trucks and tractors can drive on it for miles," saidHojjat Jabbari, a scientist working in the environmental department in Urmia.

In the last two decades, experts say, a toxic combination of wasteful irrigation practices, the damming of feeder rivers, prolonged drought and a warming climate has accelerated the decline of the storied lake, noted in the historical accounts of various civilizations dating back millenniums.

Today, according to experts at Iran"s environmental agency, the lake, in a broad plain flanked by steep mountains, contains only 5% of the amount of water it did just 20 years ago.

The decline is part of a broader problem facing the Islamic Republic, much of which is already desert.

Some analysts suggest that water rationing may have to be imposed in Tehran, the densely populated capital and metropolitan area home to more than 12 million people.

In January, the centrist Iranian newspaper Shahrvand reported that 517 of more than 700 cities and towns in Iran were "on the verge of a water crisis" that could result in drinking water shortages, especially during the parched summer.

In recent years, several large Iranian rivers have dried up, as has Iran"s third-largest lake, Hamoun, in the southeast.

"Iran is becoming an uninhabitable desert, and do not think it will happen in the future — it is happening already," Iran"s former agriculture minister, Isa Kalantari, said in remarks published last year in local media.

With economic and security concerns dominating official discourse, environmental awareness has been slow to take hold in Iran. The Islamic Republic finished 83rd among 178 nations ranked recently on the Environmental Performance Index, which tracks various indicators of environmental, public health and ecosystem vitality. Severe air pollution in Tehran and other cities regularly forces the closure of schools and offices.

Experts say future water shortages are likely to be felt most keenly by Iran"s agricultural sector, which accounts for about 13% of the nation"s economic output and almost one-quarter of its employment. Environmentalists have warned that toxic salts leaching from Lake Urmia"s desiccated shores could taint nearby farmland.

In some instances, water policies and the effects of shortages have fueled public protests, a development authorities eye with dismay. Demonstrators clashed with police in Varzaneh in Esfahan province, in central Iran, during more than a month of protests last year against the government"s diversion of water to other regions.

In 2011, police arrested dozens who rallied to save Lake Urmia, a source of pride among many of the 3 million people who live nearby, many of them ethnic Azeris. Officials said the protesters were detained for demonstrating without a permit, but some activists suspected hostility toward the Azeri population.

Two decades ago, Lake Urmia was still a popular destination for vacationers. Tourists marveled at the flocks of flamingos, pelicans and other bird life that gathered on its shores. Bathers immersed themselves in the saline waters and smeared their bodies with its legendary black mud, said to help heal stiff joints. Some called it Iran"s version of the Dead Sea.

"I remember how my late grandmother told us that nobody was in danger of drowning as you couldn"t sink in the salty water," recalled Ameneh Saeedi, 33, a secretary in Tehran, who vacationed at the lake regularly with her family. "We used to stay up until the small hours laughing and swimming."

Today vehicles can reach many of the lake"s more than 100 small islands that were once a signature feature, havens for wildlife and humans on holiday.

Environmentalists are divided as to whether Lake Urmia"s fate can be reversed. Mohammad Darvish, an official with the national environmental agency, remains optimistic.

"It may takes 10 years, but the salty lake can be saved," he said in an interview. "If the rain and snowfalls are managed well, we can direct enough water to the lake to be revived."

However, the cash-strapped central government has shown no sign of embarking on a massive, costly campaign to restore the lake to its former glory. Many Iranians seem resigned to its demise.

For some, Lake Urmia"s death march serves as a dark allegory for the bleak future facing a generation of young, well-educated Iranians with few viable career prospects. A recent theatrical production in Tehran, "In the Salty Land," compares the "dying salty lake" to fading hope that Iran"s moribund economy will rebound, despite vows of better times to come from President Hassan Rouhani, who was elected last year.

Gazing out at the blackened basin of Lake Urmia from its gloomy shores, it"s difficult to envision a rebirth anytime soon. The pelicans and other birds that used to enliven the scenery have moved on to more hospitable homes, leaving behind a forbidding landscape and ghostly quiet.

"The migratory birds are taking refugee in the wetlands for now," said Jabbari, the local scientist, who still harbors hope that the shriveled Urmia may one day recover its vitality. "They"re gliding over the dying lake less and less these days."

source: http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-lake-20140321,0,7538950.story

 نوشته شده توسط علی بیدار در شنبه 93/1/2 و ساعت 2:33 عصر | نظرات دیگران()

Argo, the Iran hostage crisis and US-Iran relations: a Q&A with Ambassador John Limbert

By Tevin Tatro

On March 9, Ambassador John Limbert, formerly a deputy assistant Secretary of State and a senior diplomat, sat down with The Daily to talk about his life in the Foreign Service. Held captive for 444 days in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, Limbert spoke during his ordeal with then-Iranian Deputy Defense Minister Ali Khamenei, who has since become Iran’s Supreme Leader. Here, he talks about Argo, his ordeal as a hostage in Iran and what he believes are the necessary steps for the United States to engage Iran.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Okay, softball question. What did you think of Argo?

Ambassador John Limbert (JL): Oh, I liked it a lot. It had all the elements of a good movie, it was suspenseful, it had Hollywood satire and comedy, it had incompetent American bureaucrats, it had bad Middle Easterners, it had good Middle Easterners, it had friendly Canadians… all of the things that make up a good movie.

TSD: Before the Iran hostage crisis in November [1979], the American embassy in Tehran was overrun in February 1979. Can you describe what it was like, when relations were poor and everyone knew it, to see hundreds of Iranians mobbing the embassy?

JL: I was not there at the time, but a group [of armed leftists] attacked the embassy on Feb. 14, only about three days after the final collapse of the Shah’s government. Fortunately, no one was hurt, though there was a lot of shooting, and what passed for the Iranian [provisional] government at the time did react — they did send in a force, a militia if you’d like, that threw out the attackers. Then, of course, this militia established themselves as our security force. For better or worse, they were the security force that we had for about the next six or seven months.

 TSD: After the embassy was overrun in February, it became clear that the U.S. saw its embassy in Tehran as threatened. Personnel were pulled out, but no extra security came. As a hostage, how did you make peace with the fact that the U.S. knew the embassy was under threat but didn’t do more to secure it?

JL: It’s a good question, and it’s a question that people still talk about. In July of ‘79, Secretary of State [Cyrus Vance] sent a message to the chief of mission in Tehran, about three or four weeks before I arrived, and he says, “There’s a lot of pressure to bring the Shah [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] to the United States. What are your views?” His response is quite clear: “Right now, under [revolutionary] conditions, it’s not the right thing to do…” That message was exactly right, and Cyrus Vance, as I understand the story, he used this reply to argue against admitting the Shah when there was pressure, notably from [banker and philanthropist] Dave Rockefeller and [former Secretary of State] Henry Kissinger.

[That changed in] October [1979, when] President Carter and the government learn for the first time that the Shah is sick with cancer in Mexico and that he needs to come immediately to the United States for treatment. That changes the whole equation.

 TSD: Really? But why would they admit the Shah?

JL: Of course, the reasons that the embassy had cited in July were still valid in October… According to some accounts, President Carter was told that if [the Shah died], he would be politically vulnerable because people are going to say that one, he lost Iran, and, two, he sat and did nothing and let the Shah die. Now Carter — remember, this is October of ’79 — is facing an election in one year, and things don’t look good. In 1979, the economy was bad: What I tell my students is that President Carter’s approval rating and the inflation rate were at about the same level.

Others, notably National Security Adviser [Zbigniew] Brzezinski, argued that the shah has been an ally for 25 to 30 years and we couldn’t just abandon him as no one else is going to take him. You have arguments on both sides. What I think turned the issue was Cyrus Vance. He switched positions. He had been opposed to admitting the Shah like the President was, but after he learned of the illness, he switched his position.

TSD: You’ve lived and worked in Iran; you speak fluent Farsi. What do Iranians think of Americans today?

JL: Most Iranians that I know do not wake up first thing in the morning and think about the United States. Same with Americans. It’s not what most of our countrymen think about. I know it’s hard for us to accept the fact that we are not at the center of everyone else’s life. But we’re not.

We have not talked to each other as states for 33 years, and each side looks at the other and exaggerates and distorts both the other’s intentions and capabilities. And not having any diplomatic representation, both sides go to the worst-case scenario. If the Iranians buy a shipment of truck parts, it’s somehow related to their nuclear programs. If we rotate some of our ships, it somehow becomes a part of an invasion of Iran.

TSD: So how does the U.S. engage Iran?

JL: The first thing is [to] calm down. You hear politicians refer to the threat from Iran. You hear a certain presidential candidate say, for example, Iran needs access to Syria to gain access to the sea. But something’s wrong. Something’s wrong with that. Don’t they teach geography at Harvard Business School? But this is from somebody who wants to be President of the United States. So the first thing is [to] take a deep break, back off and ask yourself, what is this talk really about?

TSD: A lot of people would argue that it’s about Israel and Israeli security.

JL: If I were an Israeli and I heard about us being erased off the pages of time, I wouldn’t take very well to that. But the interesting thing is that Iran has become an issue of very sharp and pointed debate within Israel. Israelis themselves are not united over what the relationship should be, what the real threat is, what we should be worried about. It’s not just the academics, like us, not just the negotiators and diplomats, but people with strong security and intelligence backgrounds. And they are saying, no, we need to be a bit more measured.

If I were a right-wing politician from Israel, my biggest ally would be [Iranian] President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. I would send him a check every month to keep him talking the same way. For the far right in Israel, he’s the gift that keeps on giving.

TSD: So you’re saying that radical statements by groups like Hamas and states like Iran are almost advantageous to politicians in Israel because it sort of shores up the conservative right wing support?

JL: Sure. You keep beating the drums and say “Iran this, Iran that, vote for me because I’m the best protection against the crazy people out here.” A lot of Iranians know that. If you noticed back in the [Iranian] presidential campaign in 2009, Ahmadinejad came under a lot of criticism for a lot of needlessly provocative statements from his opponents, not that they were friends of Israel, but they criticized him for political incompetence, if you’d like, for making statements that did not serve the interests of their own country.

TSD: Sure, cooler heads may prevail, but what if they don’t? What do you do when diplomacy fails?

JL: Diplomacy doesn’t fail — you just need patience. [We"ve had] 32 years now of estrangement, and relations are very bad. The view of each other is very bad. A two-week moratorium on criticism or a one-month moratorium isn’t going to change that.

These things do not vanish overnight with one statement, one meeting and one message. What you have to do is not give up, because there will be setbacks. But the worst thing you can do is [to] throw your hands up. Why is it that the other side is always intransigent, and we are always reasonable?

TSD: Did you feel betrayed by your government when you were a hostage in Iran for 444 days?

JL: I don’t know if I would use the word betrayed. I understand the reasons that President Carter made the decision that he did. I wish he hadn’t, but he did. The message to us was, “You are expendable. We have reasons for doing what we’re doing, and your job is to carry on.”

This interview has been condensed and edited.

source: http://www.stanforddaily.com

 نوشته شده توسط علی بیدار در یکشنبه 91/12/20 و ساعت 2:48 عصر | نظرات دیگران()