29 April 2009
Posted in Illustrations

Communication has the potential of being a powerful positive tool in a person's repertoire of skills. The words we use often determine the success and failure of our interactions.
According to research psychologists, the average one-year-old child has a three-word vocabulary.  By fifteen months children can speak nineteen words.  At two years of age, most youngsters possess a working knowledge of 272 words. Their vocabulary catapults to 896 words by age three, 1,540 by age four, and 2,072 words by age five. By age six the average child can communicate with 2,562 words.
Our word accumulation continues to grow yet effective use of them does not necessarily follow. Even though the average adult speaks at a rate of 125 to 200 words per minute and up to 18,000 words per day, this does not mean messages have been dearly relayed. "Words, like glasses," wrote Joseph Joubert, "obscure which they do not make clear."