Why Gender Matters: Differences in Hearing.
Sixteen months after their birth baby girls usually have about 100 words in their vocabulary repertoire. Boys on the other hand, have only 40. Why this gap? What causes this difference? These gender differences in language acquisition have been expressed, tested and analyzed through a battery of tests performed by renowned scientists. Due to continuous research, scientists have discovered that there are innate anatomical differences in brain tissue between the genders. These divergences in the brain’s configuration are evidently seen while observing differences not only present in language but also, marked variations in emotion, education and cognitive expressions between the sexes. In his book Why Gender Matters, Dr. Leonard Sax has brought to our attention that these genetically programmed divergence need to be genuinely taken into consideration while educating young boys and girls. The focus of this paper will be based upon these unprecedented results depicting differences in the hearing apparatus of girls and boys and how these affect their educational experience.
Do females have a superior hearing ability? In the late 1980 graduate students from Florida State University conducted an experiment where they tested the effect of soothing music therapy on premature babies. Some researches theorized that playing soft music in a baby’s crib would relax the baby, therefore increase the baby’s appetite so the baby would grow faster. Results suggested that babies who heard the music left the hospital on average 5 days earlier than babies who didn’t hear the music (Sax, 2006). When looking at the results based upon gender, premature baby girls who were part of the experimental group left the hospital on average 9 ½ days earlier than the premature baby girls who were not exposed to the soothing music. On the contrary, both premature baby boys in the experimental and control groups had no difference whatsoever in their discharge dates (Sax, 2006). What caused this difference? Other experiments have been done to test the validity of these results and each come to the same conclusion. For that reason, Leonard Sax (2006) claims that “girls’ hearing [is] substantially more sensitive than boys’” (p.17). Therefore, these premature baby boys could not hear the music as well as the girls hence its soothing composure did not have any effect on the boys. More over, Leonard Sax (2006) stated that girls hearing is enhanced “especially in the 1,000 – 4,000 hz range, which is so important for speech discrimination” (p.17). Speech discrimination is substantially important in these boys and girls as they attend an academic setting.
Gender differences in hearing affect the overall performance of students inside a classroom. As previously informed, girls hear considerably better at lower frequencies than boys do. Consequently, girls are distracted by noise levels “about ten times softer than noise levels boys [would] find distracting” (p.18). Taping pens, desks, or the subtle noise of a bird would easily distract any girl from any educational situation. Girls need to be in a serene, noise-free environment in order to successfully achieve the desired focus inside a classroom. Why does it seem then, that boys are the one easily distracted in an educational setting compared to girls? The teacher’s voice level – specially the one of a female teacher - becomes a huge factor that interferes directly with the boy’s learning environment. According to the female teacher, she could be speaking in a normal voice tone. The girls inside her classroom hear her perfectly well, while the boys have difficulty listening to what the teacher is saying because for them, she is speaking in a soft tone. If it were a male teacher inside the classroom the opposite would occur. Girls would believe the male teacher is screaming at them while the boys would hear him in an adequate manner. In the scenario where the female teacher is the educator the boys would be easily driven to distraction because they aren’t as involved in the classroom discussion as the female teacher might think (Sax, 2006).
I vehemently believe these findings to be imperative to any educator’s knowledge. Children are complex, dynamic, constantly changing and directly affected by their surroundings that in order to reach every child each day the educator must know, understand, and detect their diverse realities. One of the best learning environments occurs when children feel safe, understood and respected. In turn, they become motivated and open to learning the information presented by the current educator. From my personal experience, when this scenario takes place the students are prone to accepting the challenges provided by the professor and therefore easily motivated to succeed. Understanding the biological implications and differences in each gender and applying simple theories - as girls hearing better than boys - can be of great assistance in the overall dynamic of the classroom. Now, why does a 16-month-old baby girl have 60 more words in her vocabulary repertoire compare to baby boys? Simply because girls hear better than boys.
Reference:
Sax, L. (2006). Why gender matters: what parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences. New York, NY: Broadway.
So far, anything about children would be helpful for our Teaching Practicum I. This article has been written by a colleage from Escuela Americana. It called my attention because today I heard a conversation between two girls talking about differences among genders. They were really curious about this fact and so was I. Let me share this article with you, I hope you find it useful.
ReplyDeleteI have read some documents that say that girls have a better speking becuase they develop, more than boys, the left cerebral hemisphere which has the control of the language system. when the author if this article says that girls develp a better speaking thn boys is not only because "they listen better than boys" I consider that there are more genetical proves that can tell us moroe about language acqusition.I´m going to look the article that I mentioned but so far I invite you to read this http://www.personarte.com/hemisferios.htm
ReplyDeleteThis article is very interesting, I had heard something like this but I didn't understand why it happens. But, it's important for me to do not generalize. For example, I have one niece and one nephew both of the same age, but the boy is the one that developed earlier his speaking skill. At the age of 3 he had a larger vocabulary repertory than my niece and it was so obvious. In conclusion I can say that it depends on the stimuli children recieve.
ReplyDeleteIt is really important to know every single fact that this article include. I think that now that I already read the fact why boys get distracted easily than girls, even though girls tend to get distracted for every single and small thing, I can understand why most of the boys likes to have male teachers and that is because when there is a masculine figure with strong voice they like to even participate. Also, now I understand why I prefer female teachers or male teachers with smooth voice in order to feel concentrate and comfortable during the class.
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ReplyDeleteI had understood that girls develop their language skill than boy because they tend to express their feelings than boys.However ,I think there can be many facts that could help children develop their language. As Haydee said it can be the stimuli children had.Also, It is depend on children's personality.If a child is shy he or she won't talk parents try to teach some words.I would like to give an example of my little niece and nephew. He is a shy person and my niece like to talk even if she does not know the person.They have almost the same age, but my niece is one month older. She learn to talk very fast than my nephew.She lives with her grandparents and she knows other children that live near her house, on the other hand my little nephew does not know other childrens. I think that although there is a little difference in age it can be influence in a way. Also, I believe that the inverioment and children personality also mark a differnece in the acquisition of the language.
ReplyDeleteI like the words ¨teachers need to know, understand, and identify their different realities¨ I think the most important part is the environment that teacher show or share with his-her students because if students feel well, they learn better, showing good behavior (interesting in the class) that important date on the audio of the girls and boys.
ReplyDeleteI think that each child is different so need as a teacher show different ways to understand each child, I know it can be difficult but tips like these can help a lot.
ReplyDeleteBut in practice, that there are more people (men) who invent and discover things than women ¨if we (women) develop more their cognitively.¨ What about this?
Well, this article was really interesting. Something that got my attention was to know that being a female or male teacher can influence the way in which students learn, so since now I am going to be more careful every time that I speak in front of my students.
ReplyDeleteNow, I would like to add that I read some blogs and articles that explain why girls tend to have better hearing and speaking skills. Some of them mentioned the fact that girls use a more advanced part of their brains, which make them to develop speaking skills faster. Also, it was mentioned that girls pay great attention to developing friendships through conversation and are more likely to listen other people. As a result, girls are more likely to express their emotions and feelings without problem. However, it was stated that boys are better at object location, spatial memory and do better in tasks related with mathematic operations.
Interesting Tati. I think that we are still in a sexist or male chauvinist world. There are many intellectual women but their contributions are not fairly recognized worldwide.
ReplyDelete(Male chauvinism is a term used to describe the belief that men are superior to women. It is often used interchangeably with "sexism" and is closely associated with misogyny and perceptions of women as inferior to men, especially intellectually)
I find this article way too important, I've heard that girls can do many tasks at the same time while boys can't. I truly believe that boys and girls are different in many ways, and as we know and Tati pointed out that most of the things, objects or wherever that we have nowadays have been invented mostly by men not by women, why could this have happened?. I just can say that it is interesting to see how they differ.
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