Born Smart

There is a huge amount of pressure on parents to teach their babies and toddlers, mostly from advertising companies promoting their products. The problem is that by placing such emphasis on educational toys the human or social element of learning is overlooked.

A study published in the July 17 edition of the Journal Science reported that learning is;

social and
“supported by brain circuits that links perception and action that connect people together. (Exactly how real people are connected to another’s learning is not fully understood yet)

The lead author Andrew Meltzoff says, “Social interaction is more important than we previously thought and underpins early learning.”

Co Author Patricia Kuhl studied babies when learning a second language from a real person and when learning the second language from the same person, but viewed on a television. She said, “A person can get more information by looking at another person face to face. [Babies] take in more information by looking at another person face to face than by looking at that person on a big plasma TV screen.”