Found this over on my Google plus page. I should probably check there more than once per quarter, but hey.... My thought is that the FMRI they are using here can not be the loud bangy bangy thing that I have experienced in the more traditional open and closed tube regular MRIs I have had. Debbie Mischo , and Ken McGlothlen this follows on recent chats. ----------------------------------- -------------- ------------------------------------- Babies Practice Speech before they are able to speak : Fascinating study coupled with some earlier posts about the way human babies recognize language. While I was first quite interested in how toddlers learn (see SAF - A Change of Mind.m4v ), there is more research now in this area, which is amazing to know about. University of Washington researchers have published a new paper which is linked to this post as well. Article Extract: “Most babies babble by 7 months, but don’t utter their first words until after their first birthdays,” said lead author Patricia Kuhl, who is the co-director of the UW’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. “Finding activation in motor areas of the brain when infants are simply listening is significant, because it means the baby brain is engaged in trying to talk back right from the start and suggests that 7-month-olds’ brains are already trying to figure out how to make the right movements that will produce words.” The results emphasize the importance of talking to kids during social interactions even if they aren’t talking back yet. “Hearing us talk exercises the action areas of infants’ brains, going beyond what we thought happens when we talk to them,” Kuhl said. “Infants’ brains are preparing them to act on the world by practicing how to speak before they actually say a word.” Motherese : Babies of parents who used more sound effects and motherese actually had better vocabularies when they were 2. The effects were the strongest when moms used sound effects around the 10 and 11-month babies. Article link: washington.edu/news/2014/07/14/months-before-their-first-words-babies-brains-rehearse-speech-mechanics/ Research Paper: pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/10/1410963111.full.pdf+html Source: popsci/blog-network/kinderlab/talking-babies-their-own-language Babies learn to recognize words (sounds) in the womb: news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2013/08/babies-learn-recognize-words-womb
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 10:05:36 +0000