Early Language Skills

[JerryF]

If any of you have ever seen TED talks you'll know how inspiring they are. In this TED Talk Patricia Kuhl discusses an astonishing finding about how babies learn language.

This video pushed me to prepare for my daughter, she's only 2 months, but she's quickly reaching the age of developing her understanding of language. It's time for not just English flash cards but multiple languages.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Thank you for sharing! Can't wait to check it out. & kudos to you for preparing materials for your DD now.

ETA: This is a really great video! I loved the part that demonstrated the brief 12 session mandarin exposure during the critical window and how the kids stacked up against babies from native mandarin-speaking families. Babies are amazing!!!!

[JerryF]

Your very welcome! Babies really are amazing! An important point made in the video for me was that babies won't really pick up language from just sounds and/or video, but only by a live person interacting with them.

There is another great show called "The Science of Babies" on National Geographic Explorer, I caught it on Netflix, I can't find the full episode on the net. It was a plathera of information on how babies develop from the day they are born until they are 1 years old. Things like four month olds just know math, it's prewired! And you don't need to crawl to know how to walk, babies have to relearn everything from when they learn to crawl to when they learn to walk. I wonder if my daughter can skip crawling altogehter?

[drummerboy]

Skipping crawling would be a bad idea - not because it would mean she wouldn't learn to walk but because she would miss valuable neurological development in cross patterning. Right arm and left leg moving together is an important milestone that doesn't crop up again until a child learns to walk with their arms in a cross pattern motion. One that's very important. Doman has quite a bit to say on the matter I think it is valuable reading.

Great video by the way - but for me it just made more questions pop up rather than providing answers.  For instance I know for a fact that my son did learn language from nothing other than a dvd and without interaction from me. I used to prop him up on my chest and go to sleep while he watch his language dvd and yet he learned more than a handful of words from this. many children have learned a second language from  Muzzy and many children have a sprinkling of Spanish thanks to Dora and Diego.

So all it makes me ask is what was the nature of the tv they showed these children that got no results.  I also have a friend who put YBCR on for her children (twins) while doing house work and sometimes  a bit of a one eyed kip and yet both of these children were recognising words well before their first birthday (though I truly think twins have an unfair advantage).

So I think perhaps much much more study needs to be done before we take this as the law of children learning - but it would certainly indicate that human interaction makes the process speedier and surer.

[JerryF]

I tend to agree with you, children will absorb something just from watching the videos. They're not blindly looking at changing color patterns in awe, they must recognize faces and gestures and actions. But interacting with a live person must speed things up a bit. My perscription will be a healthy dosing of both.

Thanks for the insight on crawling, I will be looking into that a bit more.

[MummyRoo]

I am a big advocate of early language learning - we can pick up so many things later in life, but languages are not generally one of them (to native level, at least!) I really wanted to cover as many languages as possible with my son, but just couldn't manage consistancy with so many and pared it down to just four, two native and two foriegn. For now

I agree that it is possible to learn languages through dvd - I have no Mandarin or Japanese myself, but since they are the most linguistically different to English of the languages I wanted to cover I have focused on them first of all. My son now insists on naming dogs only in Chinese (I think this is due to Little Pim's dog films) yet has only heard the word on dvd. He refuses to use English or Russian words for dog, though he does understand them.

It is undoubtedly true that babies can't get a native-level understanding of a language through dvd alone, but it is an important resource for those without access to native teachers to at least introduce the sounds and workings of a language.

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