This is an excellent article written on the topic of using sign language to enhance language and literacy skills. The bottom line is that signing can be fun and enjoyable and it doesn't hurt language development. But, it's not clear that it helps either. So, if you want to learn to use sign with your baby go for it. At the same time, don't feel that you MUST do this, young children can learn to talk without it.
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Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Communication
As you already know, newborn babies communicate mainly through cries. The first cry you probably heard was your baby’s birth cry, which consists of a couple of gasps and a wail lasting about a second. Other cries will tell you things like “I’m hungry,” “I’m in pain,” or “I’m upset.” The hunger cry is typically a pattern of loud crying, silence, whistling inhalation, and rest, which may include a sucking response. Pain is expressed by a loud, shrill cry. This pattern includes a long cry, a long breath-holding silence, and whimpering. Often your baby will manifest tension in his face, some frowns, or clenched fists. An upset or angry cry expends a large volume of air, resulting in an exasperated sound. These are general patterns of cries— your baby will have his own variation. It won’t take you long to tell the difference between your baby’s cries. This is a first area of connection for you and your baby, just like eye contact in the visual system and reflexes in the motor system.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Really?
Really? I'll say it again really? People thought that Baby Einstein was going to make their babies smart? Okay, if it didn't work you can go get a refund.
I'm so glad I never was given a set of those things, I know many people who did. My worry was that I couldn't then in good consciousness go and give the things to the Good Will or somthing, it would be perpetuating the notion that sticking babies in front of the television would make them smarter. And, yes it IS television.
But, it's educational!! No, it isn't. What made people go for this drivel in the first place? Well, it turns out that very young children can learn to distinguish different sounds. They can even distinguish sounds in languages that are not in their native language. But, over time, they lose the ability to make the distinctions in the language that they don't hear everyday.
We also know that babies who are exposed to lots of language on average learn more words. But, videos and television-- while they may use language, words, and concepts that babies can learn are not INTERACTIVE. Duh! Here's more on that issue.
Now, I'm not saying that sometimes it isn't convenient to park your baby in front of something like this so that you can take a shower. I'm just saying that you can't count on videos to teach your baby language. Language has give and take, it's responsive-- those are things that only other people in your baby's life can do.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Talking to Children
I read this article today on a new book, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. The emphasis is on what it is parents can do to nurture and support learning. It's worth a read.
My work with older (preschool children) on mediated learning shows that it's not only about exposing children to language that helps them learn it, it's helping them understand what to pay attention to and to learn to regulate their own attention-- essentially learning how to learn.
In some ways, this isn't all that different from mediated learning, but it seems to do a nice job in providing information based on the vast amount of scientific literature that is available.
How should parents help children learn to learn. One aspect is attention. Many homes around the world are information rich. There's a lot of information-- visual, auditory, sensory-- that babies and young children (and we as adults) need to learn to organize and grapple with. So, an important skill becomes learning how to attend to one thing at a time within the information stream. Parents are instrumental in helping children to pay attention to what's important (and to ignore what's not important). One way parents can do this is through repetition (and variation). Babies seem to like routine-- they find comfort in it. At the same time the novel is fun. By keeping the same basic routine, but varying one thing (or two) at a time, babies can learn to pay attention and look for the novel.
That's it for now. More on this and other topics later.
My work with older (preschool children) on mediated learning shows that it's not only about exposing children to language that helps them learn it, it's helping them understand what to pay attention to and to learn to regulate their own attention-- essentially learning how to learn.
In some ways, this isn't all that different from mediated learning, but it seems to do a nice job in providing information based on the vast amount of scientific literature that is available.
How should parents help children learn to learn. One aspect is attention. Many homes around the world are information rich. There's a lot of information-- visual, auditory, sensory-- that babies and young children (and we as adults) need to learn to organize and grapple with. So, an important skill becomes learning how to attend to one thing at a time within the information stream. Parents are instrumental in helping children to pay attention to what's important (and to ignore what's not important). One way parents can do this is through repetition (and variation). Babies seem to like routine-- they find comfort in it. At the same time the novel is fun. By keeping the same basic routine, but varying one thing (or two) at a time, babies can learn to pay attention and look for the novel.
That's it for now. More on this and other topics later.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Power of Music
We know from experience that music can influence how we feel. We can play music to set a mood for dinner. Children seem to respond to music as well, some music is soothing and may help babies sleep while other music seems exciting to them. Can babies tell the difference between happy and sad music? How early can they distinguish these differences?
A research study published in the Infant Behavior and Development focused on these questions in babies ages 3-, 5-, 7-, and 9 months of age. How is it possible to even tell if babies can make these distinctions?! The researcher in the study used habituation. The basic idea is this: When you hear something new, you usually notice it. But, if it's not new or the same thing is presented several times you get bored and no longer pay attention to it. Same thing with babies. They initially become alert and might look around to see what the source is when they hear a new sound. After the same thing is presented several times they no longer care-- they become habituated to the sound. There are many variations to this scheme depending on the question and on the baby's age.
In this experiment babies of different ages were habituated to sad or happy music. The researchers did 3 experiments to understand what the babies were and weren't paying attention to and to understand whether they could really tell the music apart and under what circumstances.
The results indicated that first babies at all ages habituated to the music. But, only babies over 3 months were able to distinguish between the happy and sad music but in different ways depending on age. When the 5 month olds and 7 month olds heard sad music during habituation they paid more attention to the happy music. But, when they heard happy music during habituation they didn't seem to pay more attention to the sad music. The oldest group (9-months old) were able to notice the change in both directions (from happy to sad; sad to happy).
What does all this mean? The relationship between music and language is not well known, but this is a good step toward this understanding. Music, like language and speech, can be used to convey meaning. Babies seem to be able to pick up on differences related to tone, intonation, pitch, and tempo (all which differentiate happy and sad music). This doesn't mean they know what sad or happy is, only that they can recognize the differences in the music. But, even very young children are starting to at least be able to tell the differences associated with affect. Being able to recognize these differences may be important in learning how to learn emotion and mood which provides information beyond what is said and helps in development of effective communication.
A research study published in the Infant Behavior and Development focused on these questions in babies ages 3-, 5-, 7-, and 9 months of age. How is it possible to even tell if babies can make these distinctions?! The researcher in the study used habituation. The basic idea is this: When you hear something new, you usually notice it. But, if it's not new or the same thing is presented several times you get bored and no longer pay attention to it. Same thing with babies. They initially become alert and might look around to see what the source is when they hear a new sound. After the same thing is presented several times they no longer care-- they become habituated to the sound. There are many variations to this scheme depending on the question and on the baby's age.
In this experiment babies of different ages were habituated to sad or happy music. The researchers did 3 experiments to understand what the babies were and weren't paying attention to and to understand whether they could really tell the music apart and under what circumstances.
The results indicated that first babies at all ages habituated to the music. But, only babies over 3 months were able to distinguish between the happy and sad music but in different ways depending on age. When the 5 month olds and 7 month olds heard sad music during habituation they paid more attention to the happy music. But, when they heard happy music during habituation they didn't seem to pay more attention to the sad music. The oldest group (9-months old) were able to notice the change in both directions (from happy to sad; sad to happy).
What does all this mean? The relationship between music and language is not well known, but this is a good step toward this understanding. Music, like language and speech, can be used to convey meaning. Babies seem to be able to pick up on differences related to tone, intonation, pitch, and tempo (all which differentiate happy and sad music). This doesn't mean they know what sad or happy is, only that they can recognize the differences in the music. But, even very young children are starting to at least be able to tell the differences associated with affect. Being able to recognize these differences may be important in learning how to learn emotion and mood which provides information beyond what is said and helps in development of effective communication.
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