Born Smart » Speech

Baby learning games – the 3 elements of learning

Admin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:00:00 +0000

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.”

Why television cause language delay in babies

Admin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:11:43 +0000

There are many baby DVD products on the market today, however the best thing you can do for your baby’s speech is to switch the television off.

Whilst it has been a well known fact that television before the age of two cause language delays, the exact reason for this has not been clear. A new study looked into why television causes delay in language.

Researchers found that when the television is on there are fewer conversations. An adult will typically utter 941 words per hour, the study authors found that once the television is switched on adult words were almost completely eliminated.

If you want to help your baby develop good language skills, switch the television off and talk to your baby. Reading singing playing and music are excellent for good language development.

Researchers gave the following tips for parents;

For babies: Avoid TV for babies under age two.

For children over age two: If you allow TV time, choose age-appropriate programs.

Involve older children in setting guidelines for what to watch. Use guides and ratings to help, but beware of unproven claims that programs or DVDs are educational. Even cartoons produced for children can be violent or over stimulating.

Limit TV time to no more than two hours per day. Less is better. Keep TV off during meals.

Set “media-free” days, and plan other fun things to do. Avoid using TV as a reward. Turn off TV when a chosen program is over. Don’t leave TV on as background filler or while engaging in other activities.

When no one is actively watching, turn TV off. Watch TV with your child. Talk about what you see and engage with your child about the content. Keep TVs out of bedrooms.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090601182830.htm

Toddlers with more gestures have higher vocabulary and better school readiness

Admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:02:00 +0000

14 month old children that communicate more with gestures have been found to have much larger vocabularies at age 4 and a half and are better prepared for school than children who did not. Researchers also found a correlation between social economic status (SES) and differences in gesture use of children. Professor Goldin-Meadow says, “Vocabulary is a key predictor of school success and is a primary reason why children from low-income families enter school at a greater risk of failure than their peers from advantaged families.”

We can speculate that the reason that the difference in children’s vocabulary also correlating with social economic status can possibly be for reasons such as;

mothers from lower income families may have to work and spend less time with their children,
other studies have also linked lower SES with higher intake of junk food
Parents form higher SES backgrounds where found to talk to their children more and in more complex sentences.

Although I agree with the result for this study, I think it’s important not to look towards one distinct parental behaviour as the cause for this anomaly. I believe it is more likely that a combination of factors increases a child’s vocabulary.

We should also include the following as possible reasons;

diet during pregnancy,

mother infant bonding, (the mother infant bond can influence baby’s learning enormously. A baby who spends less time crying is a baby that spends more time learning and a mother closely bonded to her baby will be able to read his cues better and in doing so help baby to develop non verbal communication).

diet after birth, (breast feeding and mother’s diet during breast feeding)

the child’s environment, (how many words he hears and how often he is spoken to).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212141145.htm