T alk might be cheap, or so the saying goes. But research is showing that with a little adult guidance, young children of all backgrounds might be able talk their way into better academic and social achievement later in life. "In the last maybe five or so years, there's been a pretty significant advance in research around early language development by using brain-imaging scans," says Allison Wilson, an assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Montana. "What we've found is the number of conversational turns, or back-and-forth interactions between children and their adult caregivers, relate to areas in the brain that are really critical for language development. It's a really predictive metric of later childhood outcomes."