Archive for October, 2007.
Here are some ways to help your baby with the learning process:
• Look at books and talk about the pictures in simple languages. Where possible try and use books that your baby is able to hold.
• Talk often to your baby using simple words to identify objects in his life. Name trees, numbers, colours, and animals as you take your
baby for a walk. You should also use your baby’s name often – this way she will be able to recognise it.
• Talk back to your child when she talks with you.
• Introduce concepts to your baby, such as the “big” dog or the “little” mouse. • Give your baby time to get his words out; don’t be tempted to complete sentences for him.
• Continue to read to your baby as much as possible. Reading should be part of your daily routine.
• From day one start to talk in a simple, short and uncomplicated way with your baby – even though she will not understand what you are saying this is laying the foundations for learning language.
Nine to twelve months. It’s possible that by now your baby understands requests and commands such as “give it” or “don’t touch that”. Similarly, she may understand simple questions such as “where’s your rattle?” At this time you should be encouraging your baby to use gestures (and you should respond to them). For example if your baby indicates she wants to be picked up then say “you want to be picked up?” while picking her up. This helps the learning process. You should also talk about everything that you do, and use gestures (and short sentences) as you’re doing them.
Eight months. Your baby is playing games such as pat a cake and peeka- boo. Even though he can’t speak the words that belong to these games, he can babble and talk to himself. It’s likely that your baby knows what the word “No” means by now as well.
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The scientists found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them. Baby DVDs and videos had no positive or negative effect on the vocabularies on toddlers 17 to 24 months of age. The study was published today in the Journal of Pediatrics.
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Made-for-baby videos may harm language development: study
“Despite marketing claims, parents who want to give their infants a boost in learning language probably should limit the amount of time they expose their children to DVDs and videos such as Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby,” said a statement about the study.
Many parents think they’re helping their baby’s language by letting them watch a Baby Einstein DVD, but the opposite might be the case, according to a study out Tuesday.
The study found that with every hour per day spent viewing baby DVDs and videos, infants between the ages of eight and 16 months learned about 10 per cent fewer new vocabulary words compared to babies who never watched the targeted programming.
As well, the study showed that babies in the same age range who watched other types of programming such as children’s educational shows, children’s non-educational shows, kids movies or adult television learned more words, versus babies watching infant-geared shows.
For toddlers aged 17 to 24 months, the article found that baby DVDs and videos had neither a positive nor a negative effect.
The paper was published online Wednesday in the Journal of Pediatrics. It was done by researchers at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute who quizzed 1,008 Minnesota and Washington parents about their babies’ viewing habits. They also completed a standard evaluation for measuring infant language development.
Seven months. Your baby is now continuing to learn how to use his newfound language skills. He may be able to do things such as wave goodbye and may accompany his wave with babbling sounds. He can say “mama” or “dada”.
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ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2006) — Cognitive neuroscientists have shown that babies have an abstract numerical sense, as demonstrated by their ability to match the number of voices they hear to the number of faces they expect to see. This numerical perception across senses demonstrates that babies have a truly abstract sense of numerical concepts — and not just one that is a function of a particular sense — even before they learn to speak. Previous experiments on this topic have yielded conflicting and equivocal results, said the researchers.
The researchers, Kerry Jordan and Elizabeth Brannon of DukeUniversity, published their findings the week of Feb. 13-17, 2006, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jordan is a graduate student and Brannon is an assistant professor in Duke’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. The research was sponsored by The National Institute of Mental Health, The National Science Foundation and the John Merck Fund.
In their study, Jordan and Brannon used the same basic experimental design that they had previously used to demonstrate that monkeys show numerical perception across senses. In those experiments, the researchers, collaborating with colleagues at the Max Planck Society, presented the monkeys with the sound of two or three animals making a natural “coo” sound. At the same time they gave the monkeys a choice to look at video images of either two or three monkeys cooing. The researchers found that the monkeys overwhelmingly chose to look at video images that matched the number of monkeys they were hearing.
Similarly, in the study with seven-month-old infants, the Duke researchers presented the babies with the voices of two or three women saying “look.” Simultaneously, the babies could choose between looking at video images of two or three women saying the word. As they had found with the monkeys, the researchers found that the babies spent significantly more time looking at the video image that matched the number of women talking. According to Brannon, similar experiments by other researchers had not shown definitive results because of problems in their design.
“First of all, they had used arbitrary stimuli such as a number of objects or sounds like drumbeats, rather than ecologically relevant stimuli. We don’t know for sure this was a problem but it seems likely” said Brannon. “Also, those experiments presented the sounds successively and so the duration of the sound sequence was a potential problem.” Finally, said Brannon, previous experiments used the same subjects for multiple trials, which meant that the subjects could have learned to associate such non-numerical factors as the length of a sequence of drumbeats or the intensity of sound with numerical size. In contrast, Jordan and Brannon gave each baby only a single trial, so that the babies had no opportunity to learn anything about the stimuli.
“As a result of our experiments, we conclude that the babies are showing an internal representation of ‘two-ness’ or ‘three-ness’ that is separate from sensory modalities and, thus, reflects an abstract internal process,” said Brannon. “These results support the idea that there is a shared system between preverbal infants and nonverbal animals for representing numbers.”
The researchers said that further studies will test both babies and monkeys on their perception of larger numbers, to further explore the details of their numerical abilities. They will also explore whether monkeys can explicitly match the number of a sequence of sounds and a number of objects using a touch screen task in which a monkey has to choose between two visual arrays. Such experiments, they said, will help determine the psychological importance of where monkeys and babies look in their numerical matching paradigm.
Such studies have broad implications for understanding the evolutionary origins of numerical ability and how that ability has developed in humans, they said.
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Name Recognition
Your baby’s name is important to him, and he needs to hear it frequently to learn it belongs to him. A name that’s difficult to say can be shortened or simplified, or your baby may do that on his own when he begins to speak. There’s no need to correct his mistakes or mispronunciations – he’ll eventually do that on his own.
Additionaly to using your baby’s name frequently, play the “Name Game” with your baby. Sing the song (Baby, baby, bo-baby, banana-fana fo faby, me-my-mo-maby – baby!) or make up your own version. Show your baby pictures of other people when you sing their names, then point to your baby when you sing his name. Play Peek-A-Boo by covering your baby’s head, then asking, “Where’s (Your baby’s name)?” Pull off the cloth and say, “There’s (baby)!”
Here are some ways that you can help your baby develop her language skills:
• Speak very slowly and clearly.
• Identify and point out items, objects and people as you talk about them.
• Use shorter sentences sentences.
• Using repetition when singing songs and nursery rhymes helps the learning process.
• Reading to your baby is a good idea and should be done as often as possible – ask your baby questions and point things out to make the process as interactive as possible.
• Let your baby respond in his own way when communicating with her.
Talk to Her.
Children listen to learn. The more they hear, the greater their vocabulary and the greater their IQ. One Chicago researcher found that 2-year-old children of talkative mothers said twice as many words as the children of mothers who cared for their babies silently. However, only “live” language, not television, helps children develop language skills. Experts believe this is because children need to hear language in relation to what is happening around them, or it just becomes noise.
Even though your child may be surrounded by conversation from birth, it is important that you talk directly to him long before he can talk back to you. Before a child says her first word, she must hear that word many times and understand its meaning. The natural way for your baby to learn the meanings of words is for him to listen to you talk in relation to the events going on around you, and learn to associate the words you say with the actions, objects or thoughts you describe.
Six months. Your baby may now be using consonant-vowel combinations. It’s quite possible that he has discovered his mirror reflection and is probably having conversations with himself. Your baby’s language is becoming much more precise.
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Baby talk
Every parent can find it frustrating when their baby cries and they can’t quite work out why. Of course, a little parental instinct, common sense and a lot of luck has gone a long way for countless years, but now eager mums, dads and carers are queuing in their thousands for classes in the newly popular means of communication: baby signing.
The technique, originally explored by American child development researcher Joseph Garcia, enables hearing children as young as six months to use simple symbols and gestures to communicate their basic needs and emotions with their parents. If your baby wants his teddy, needs to go to bed or simply feels like telling you he’s seen a bird in the sky, there are simple signs with which he can now communicate it to you.
Whether you think it’s a fad, a bit of fun or an essential development tool, it looks like baby signing is here to stay, with classes springing up all over the UK and even dictionaries of key signs on sale. Advocates of the system sing signing’s benefits, claiming it reduces babies’ frustration, strengthens the bond between child and parent and encourages a child to speak earlier than usual. Some even claim that signing leads to a higher than average literacy level and a wider vocabulary.
Five months. As each month progresses you will find that your baby is becoming better at communicating. It’s possible that you will notice him imitate some sounds and gestures. By now he’ll most likely be able to let you know if he’s happy or sad. When attention is wanted your baby will babble until he is given the attention he feels he deserves. Interestingly, if you always respond to his communication efforts (whatever these may be) he’ll repeat them whenever he wants your attention this way. During this month it’s likely that your baby will be looking at your mouth moving while you talk. Talk to him from across the room and he’ll be able to find you with ease. He is learning to control his vocal sounds as he watches your response to his sounds.
From five to seven months your baby will begin understanding the language that is your family’s native tongue. They begin to imitate these sounds with simple sounds and coos. Learning to understand these coos can help you bond and relate to your baby. This is a great milestone for your newborn baby. They now understand the meaning to the word “Mommy” and “Daddy.” Now is the time to talk to your baby as much as possible. Saying the word as you point to the object will help your baby familiarize the concept of language.
Four months. By now more and more communication should be taking place with your baby. You may notice a greater amount of smiling – while his babbling may have a noticeably singsong quality to it, often ranging into a high pitch that delights him as he learns to like the sound of his own voice. There will be lots of repetition to the sounds that your baby makes. It is important that you always respond to your baby’s “oohs” and “ahhs” and whatever other communication methods she is using - respond with your own voice tones. This is your chance to have a “chat time” with your baby and you should take advantage of these times – you are
helping him to discover the art of conversation. There will also be certain times when your baby may also not be in the mood for talking. He will turn his head in the other direction and may put his arm over his face. He may be showing signs of anger or frustration by crying out, especially if something is taken away from him.
Hearing
Your baby’s hearing is crucial to developing the ability to talk. While this has been true since birth, your baby is just now beginning to understand the fundamentals of communication through hearing and language. When your baby was younger, he or she understood your meaning through the tone of your voice: soothing tones made your infant stop crying, agitated tones told your baby something was wrong. Now, your child is beginning to pick out the components of your speech. Your baby can hear and understand the different sounds you make and the way words form sentences. He or she responds to “no” and is starting to notice new sounds, like the bark of a dog or the hum of a vacuum cleaner.
Three months. By now you will find that your baby is able to recognize your voice and may come to you or face you when your voice is heard. You may notice him laugh out aloud and may even scare himself by doing this (as he does not initially know that he is the one making the sounds). Your baby will be making sounds such as “ahhhh gooo”. He will squeal when he is happy and content, again often startling himself as he learns his own abilities. At this stage you should not only talk to your baby but also introduce other communication forms such as singing and story telling. The greater your effort in trying to talk with him, the better his response is likely to be.
Two months. As a child enters his second month he is far more aware of the world – things such as sounds, even that of your voice, will amuse and fascinate your child. Change the tone of your voice and this will keep him amused. Your baby will respond with a variety of cooing sounds, vowel-like sounds, and sometimes some consonant sounds such as a “k”.
You will find that your baby has quite a collection of cooing sounds that she uses to communicate with you as well as discover how to use the sound of her own voice. During this time, try and talk with your baby this will encourage her response and help in the development process. By looking into your baby’s eyes you are communicating an important thing to her that you are listening.
