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Strollerderby
Clearly, Mom's big vocab is paying off!
Ever heard that piece of keeping it simple advice: never use a $10 word where a 2-cent one will do? Well, forget all that. At least when it comes to talking to your kids. Those $10 words? They’re like an investment in your kids’ education — one that will pay off earlier than you may think. Continue reading »
2 year olds learn new words when you, uh, stumble.
A new study out of the University of Rochester’s Baby Lab shows that “toddlers actually use their parents’ stumbles and hesitations (technically referred to as disfluencies) to help them learn language more efficiently.”
Ummm… that’s awesome news! Especially if you’re suffering from “mommy brain,” which may make you feel a bit slower than usual.
Researchers say each child studied sat on his or her parent’s lap and listened to a recorded voice talk about objects shown in front of them. One object was familiar and one invented. When the voice stumbled and said “Look at the, uh…” the child instinctively looked at the invented object much more often than the familiar image. Proof that toddlers take “uh” to mean, “I’m about to say something you’ve never heard before, kiddo, so perk your ears up!”
Go ahead and check ... you might be nonplussed.
My husband’s kind of a snooty guy. Not in some foodie/movie/oenophile hipster way. Just in a “no, you’re wrong/I’m right” way. He has difficulty containing this “tic” and it’s nearly impossible when he deems someone has mispronounced or misused a word. Especially when that someone is me.
A sample conversation:
Me: Hey, today after visiting my dad I drove the kids by some of my old stomping grounds.
Him: It’s stamping grounds.
Me: I know it’s “stamping” grounds but no one else does.
Him: People are stupid. It’s “stamping.”
Me: You’re stupid, shut up.
Him: So how’s your dad? Continue reading »
Which skills do kids get from preschool?
This week, child development researchers from the University of Michigan reported on the benefits of preschool. They say two years of a formal program before kindergarten is important, especially for certain skills.
The study, published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, followed three and four-year-old kids and assessed their skill levels in the areas of self-regulation, vocabulary, and letter knowledge.
According to the researchers, only 57 percent of three to five-year olds attend preschool. And “as many as half of students enter kindergarten without the necessary academic or social skills needed to succeed.”
Here are the skills the got a boost with two years of preschool: Continue reading »
Two languages boosts brain power
Most of us have heard that learning a second language in early childhood is a benefit to kids. The concerns about confusing children or delaying language too much in toddlerhood are largely debunked, and lots of parents are encouraged to expose babies to another language early and consistently.
Last week, a study in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology confirmed that not only are babies capable of absorbing multiple languages without skipping a beat, but that it may give them a boost in other skills as well.
In fact, it gives them an edge in one of the most important thinking skills our kids develop – one that rivals IQ in determining success:
Could Wall-E do more for your family than clean up?
In a lab in San Diego, toddlers teach robots how to act like humans, and robots teach toddlers — and grown ups — all kinds of things. If a robot doesn’t look particularly human, but responds to a twelve-month-old or even a third person, the toddler will treat the robot like it’s a human.
Maybe because they’re so responsive, babies have fun with robots. Robots can tell them something a baby has done is “excellent” and a baby will do it some more, happily. In this way, researchers learn about how emotions and emotional connections develop. Continue reading »
The serious business of ba-ba-ba
In The New York Times this week, pediatrician Perri Klass breaks down baby babble for us. As we know (but it’s always good to get a reminder), baby talk is not a random chaos of drooly sounds — it develops along a predictable path. And research shows parents have a big part in shaping it and helping their little one turn it into language.
Klass says that by seven months, the vowel strings, squeals, and gurgles that little babies make start to be punctuated with consonants. “Canonical babble” is just this — ba-ba-ba, or da-da-da. It takes a certain amount of oral-motor development, because the baby has to close her mouth and shape it in a distinct way, so as to push the air through and make the right noise. Pretty advanced stuff.
Canonical babble is a turning point for most parents, because we start to recognize and respond to these sounds as if the baby is really trying to say words. We’re finally having a conversation.
And how we respond (not just by mimicking) makes a difference. Here’s why:
Continue reading »
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