Scientist Records First 5 Years of His Son's Life, Analyzes Language Development

jamie tips a story about MIT cognitive scientist Deb Roy, who started a project five years ago, upon bringing his newborn son home from the hospital, to record his family's movement and speech inside their house. Since then, Roy has used various techniques to analyze and distill the 200 terabytes of raw data into useful and interesting visualizations. "For example, Roy was able to track the length of every sentence spoken to the child in which a particular word — like 'water' — was included. Right around the time the child started to say the word, what Roy calls the 'word birth,' something remarkable happened. 'Caregiver speech dipped to a minimum and slowly ascended back out in complexity.' In other words, when mom and dad and nanny first hear a child speaking a word, they unconsciously stress it by repeating it back to him all by itself or in very short sentences. Then as he gets the word, the sentences lengthen again. The infant shapes the caregivers’ behavior, the better to learn." Roy also compiled videos showing each time his son used certain words over a period of many months, clearly illustrating how those parts of the child's linguistic capabilities evolved over time.

Comments

"Unconsciously stress?"

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

In other words, when mom and dad and nanny first hear a child speaking a word, they unconsciously stress it by repeating it back to him all by itself or in very short sentences.

As a father of three I can tell you that this behavior isn't "unconscious.". When your kids start to say words you will spend hours and then days saying them back to your children, to confirm what they said, to model better enunciation and to just to keep them engaged in a conversation with you. The words "by itself" bit is obvious - "affel" means either "I see an apple" or "I want a piece of your apple"; coaxing more out of your child at first would be torture and lead to frustration. "In short sentences" is also obvious - you wouldn't start your 18-month-year-old with long sentences.

Is there a story here or is this just a way for a guy to spend five fun years with his kid while drawing a paycheck?

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[stewbacca]

But my baby can read, because I bought the DVDs!

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/As+Seen+On+TV+-+Your+Baby+Can+Read!+Learn+to+Read+System/9924297.p?id=1218196479432&skuId=9924297&cmp=RMX&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=9924297

But seriously, most children of any culture throughout history develop language and behavior at roughly the same intervals. Early Childhood Development is easily understood, observed and recorded. It's frankly the reason most schools are broken down by similar grade ranges across the globe (because the human child form develops at predictable levels).

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Marc_Hawke]

I'm pretty sure he meant 'instinctive' rather than 'unconscious.' Famously, your baby did NOT come with a manual that told you when to simplify your sentences to help him learn. I'm not sure where the line between 'common sense' and 'instincts' is, or whether we're just doing what we've seen other people do (i.e. learned, but not necessarily taught.)

Whatever you call it, however, 'unconscious' is definitely the wrong word.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Sir_Sri]

And because the british, french, and prussians education systems all interacted with each other. And if you didn't base your system on one of theirs, they had a few 'suggestions' backed by very big guns.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[suso]

I'm also a father and can say that this is one of the things I was most curious about. How kids learn to start talking. There really is a lot of trial and error at first and it takes a while before kids say anything intelligible. Parents of course become good at decoding what kids want.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[chill]

Your post is an anecdote. He collected data. This is a story, and there an important difference.

As for not being obvious about the short sentences... with my youngest son (4th child, now 20 months old), I made the conscious decision not only "no baby talk", but talk in full sentences just like I do to adults.

I may say things 3 different ways, as well as point, draw and demonstrate but I still talk in normal adult-level conversation. You know, one step above PC tech support. :-)

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Meddik]

You didn't get the Manual? Heck, you can download it on PDF now!

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[erroneus]

I find this to be interesting. I have noted that this same scientist is promoting some related software -- not something I am interested in. But the patterns of adults relating to children and the development of speech is of great interest to me.

My third son is growing up "bi-lingual." His mother is Japanese and I am a native English speaker. It is typical for adults to speak more slowly to a child to ensure that they are getting the information being transmitted to them.... at least it is normal here in the U.S. However, I find his mother does not slow down for my son at all. She speaks out at full speed to him at all times until I step in to defend. (I think it helps to know and understand that Japanese "spoken slowly" makes people think you are retarded or extremely old so that may be the reason she prefers to speak at full speed.)

There is a variety of other interesting things where my son's language skills are concerned, but most notably is the fact that for a long while, I thought his skills were low. In fact, they were quite high were comprehension is concerned and where speaking was concerned, he is merely being lazy. (They were out of the country for about 6 months until recently so I was unable to observe any changes or progress during their absence.) However, upon their return, I noted that despite his disconnection from English, his knowledge and comprehension of English did not diminish and seems to have improved. Further, he is able to say words that he has never spoken before to either of us and can speak every word I teach him.

I think in the end, what I was seeing was primarily a lazy parent who responded sufficiently to hints and body language and the boy never NEEDED to speak. She hasn't been teaching him or requiring him to speak. Within two days of return, however, I have required him to speak and his language skills have been explosive in development.

On top of that, he also knows his hiragana perfectly, seems to understand just about everything his mother says (except when she speaks full speed which, at times results in wide eyes and a fearful expression on his face). So it's all extremely interesting.

I think it's important to remember and to remind all that this one child is a sample size far too small to make any conclusions.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[euxneks]

Has anyone else recorded a full five years of development including the surrounding environment and parental units? I think this is useful in learning cognition and child development specifically because it can corroborate or negate current models of child development. (I am not associated with this field) Just because it confirms a lot of hypotheses doesn't mean that makes it useless :)

Not to mention he seems to have come up with a novel way to relate the data. Apparently he wants to use this in other fields as well.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[naoursla]

Because the data is recorded on non-subjective media.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[wierd_w]

The raw videos are data. The subjective recollections on the events that were recorded are anectdotes. One depicts real events, the other does not.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[HikingStick]

When one of my kids says "affel", I might wonder what he heard from his older brothers. When they get to "You affel!", the meaning becomes clear.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[gknoy]

And because he can measure things like average sentence length and so on. I'd LOVE to have this kind of data...though I'd hate to sift through it all.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[MindlessAutomata]

Why do you only talk like an adult? As far as I know, there's no (or mixed) support for talking like an adult versus "motherese." What is known is that children prefer "motherese."

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[MonsterTrimble]

is this just a way for a guy to spend five fun years with his kid while drawing a paycheck?

If you could, wouldn't you?,/p>

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[ender-]

As for not being obvious about the short sentences... with my youngest son (4th child, now 20 months old), I made the conscious decision not only "no baby talk", but talk in full sentences just like I do to adults.

We basically did the same thing with my daughter, now almost 6 years old. We never used baby talk [no 'baba' or 'wawa', always 'bottle' and 'water]. From day one we would talk to her constantly. We would explain every detail of everything we did in full sentences. Sure, we'd often use the high-pitched baby-talk cadence and tone [kids do respond to that and learn better from it], but always in full sentences .

The end result? Well, she didn't start talking particularly early, but she did move into complex sentences and ideas well before her peers. By the *beginning* of Kindergarten she was reading at a 2nd grade level with full comprehension, and able to get gist of most 3rd grade level stuff and higher. She has an amazing grasp of language. As an example, in the first month of her Kindergarten class, her teacher was walking them through the hallways. The teacher was asking the students not to look into the open doors of other classrooms. The teacher struggled to find the right word when she told them that the other classes might find it 'disturbing'. My daughter immediately pipes up and corrects her, saying, "Actually, I think you mean 'distracting'."

I'm no child development expert by any stretch of the imagination, but that strikes me as an amazing grasp of a very subtle difference in wording for a 5 year old to not only recognize, but immediately come up with the better word.

We still use complex sentences when we speak with her, and make a point to pull out all the stops with the vocabulary we will use with her. She's very good about stopping us and asking us what a word means if there's one she doesn't understand.

The downside to all of this is that she thinks most of her classmates are idiots, but frankly, she needs to learn to interact with people of differing abilities so she'll have to get over it. ;)

Now we just need to work on her math skills...

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[sshirley]

Prussia is back???

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[MagicM]

As for not being obvious about the short sentences... with my youngest son (4th child, now 20 months old), I made the conscious decision not only "no baby talk", but talk in full sentences just like I do to adults.

I think that most of the short sentences that GP is talking about are responses. Once a child starts saying "apple", a parent will more frequently say "you want some apple?" in response. As a result the average sentence length will go down. It has nothing to do with baby talk or even with conversation initiated by the parent.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Niobe]

I pretty much agree. But also what is the point? Another scientist conducting years of research only to state the obvious. And as though the research itself gives validity to our behaviour. I'd rather rely on 4 billion years of evolution and a few decades personal experience.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not true at all. We have similar grades and levels because *all* schooling (for small children, at least) originated in the teachings and missions of Christian clergy. Because all school systems originate from the same system, they share quite a few properties (even stupid things like the layout of the writing desks, or even writing desks themselves). They share those even today. But that doesn't make it a biological property of humans, it makes it a cultural property of catholicism.

Yes, there's an educational system that's in use pretty much all over the world - the western christian one, with the explicit purpose of spreading knowledge, and that knowledge is to be as "pure" as possible (meaning theoretical). Literally the purpose of schooling was to "show the beauty of God" to as many people as possible, and yes, that includes mathematics, physics, biology, languages, ...

That doesn't mean every culture does it like that. Most cultures never developed any form of schooling for children. Schooling for both boys and girls - exists for millenia in the west - and is almost unique. Take muslims, for example, even today girl schooling is limited, at best (and not limited like "not well-represented in 2 fields of study", but limited in that there are dozens of nations with barely any girl educated above the age of 8 or 12, yet not a single christian nation, no matter how poor, has anywhere near such a bad situation for girls).

And, of course, medieval islamic states had no schooling for children at all (while a child born in Feudal europe would get instruction in mathematics, even if it would be a very flawed instruction indeed, at least it existed). Schooling, in medieval islam (or today in the poorer nations), meant being with your mother for 6 years, then being with your father (if you're male, of course : women are not allowed out of the house. (incidentally do you know the arameic translation of "not allowed out of the tent" ? Hid-jab ... just to show that hypocrisy runs *very* deep. Muslim women even 150 years ago did not wear headscarves at all. It also explains why so many old texts say "hijab prevents men from seeing women", after all, a headscarf doesn't exactly make a woman impossible to see, right ? If anything, it makes them a lot more conspicuous. But an entire house which they never leave ...)

Say you were a soldier. At 6, you simply started training with everyone else. Of course, they were somewhat lenient at first, but general a boy soldier was expected to fully participate in battle, and carry full armor and arms by age 8.

So there are major differences between what is considered schooling in western christian civilization and "the average" civilization, if there is such a thing
-> western schooling was theoretical. Everywhere else schooling, if it existed at all, was purely practical (yes there were very few theorists at all outside of the west, that's why someone like "al-khawarizmi" (most likely an Indian slave) is considered so important for writing a book that simply did not even approach the level of the works of the ancient greeks, written 2000 years earlier (nor does it approach works found in buddhist monasteries 500 years older). What's so unique about this guy then ? His book was sold to a Venetian priest in Algeria, who put it into the library of the pope in Venice, where a monk noticed it and popularized it over Europe. In his native persia, the last copy of his book was burned by muslim clergy for contradicting the quran (well, the entire library was burned for *maybe* contradicting it))
-> western schooling was provided to both sexes. Everywhere else girls simply helped their mothers. I'm not claiming, far from it, that girls were given equal education, or rights, to boys. But they were given something of an education outside of the house (though another unique part of the west is that since the new testament, the principle of equality between the sexes was present. Just the fact that the

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Lemmy Caution]

There is a difference between a case study and an anecdote. And, when dealing with humans, everything is an anecdote - because cultural, historical, generational and linguistic factors are not reproducible. Just being different people than our parents will make our children's experiences, skill acquisition, cognitive development, etc., different. The presence of different types of media technologies (and adults habituated to them) and so forth compounds that effect.

So, even if I had an amazing diverse data set for a study spanning 10 years of kids, it's still just a snapshot, an "anecdote" about acquisition in the age of the internet, iPhones, HDTV, etc, a condition that will probably not even exist for significant details soon after such a study was finished.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[bluefoxlucid]

In other words, when mom and dad and nanny first hear a child speaking a word, they unconsciously stress it by repeating it back to him all by itself or in very short sentences.

As a father of three I can tell you that this behavior isn't "unconscious.". When your kids start to say words you will spend hours and then days saying them back to your children, to confirm what they said, to model better enunciation and to just to keep them engaged in a conversation with you. The words "by itself" bit is obvious - "affel" means either "I see an apple" or "I want a piece of your apple";

In my experience this behavior is stupidity. "Affel? Did woo zay affel? Yes you did, yes you did! Heeeeee~"

In other words, when mom and dad and nanny first hear a child speaking a word, they unconsciously become retarded.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Lemmy Caution]

Now we just need to work on her math skills...

You may have jinxed yourself a bit. Cultivating precocity in one dimension seems to delay and sometimes restrict development in others. Especially during the most plastic periods of brain development, when there is almost a "neural arms races" to recruit "real estate" for different fluencies, abilities etc. The best advice, if you want a well-rounded child, is simply to allow the process to go on naturally, prodding for extra effort to get over occasional hurdles. Having educated "cognitively engineered super-babies, I think one does a child few favors by pushing for precocity. In fact, there are signs that it can be counter-productive, when the natural momentum of the early start is exhausted and they have to start "working" at it again.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Nadaka]

Note: Most of those tutorials are for custom models with aftermarket parts. Factory models usually provide a lot fewer options. And even then, the order of operations may not be productive.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[bluefoxlucid]

Maybe if we didn't teach kids to be retarded, they wouldn't be so shitty. I fucking hate children, but I find small asian kids unbelievably disturbing. Every child I meet is a retarded asshole... but the little chinese/japanese kids are like 3 years old, they're quiet, polite, they watch what they do, they get the fuck out of your way, and they don't touch your shit because it's there and they wanna get their grabby hands on it. WTF? It's unbelievably creepy. These are not the kids I'm used to.

We're doing something wrong. Seriously.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Nadaka]

Most kids are not raised in double blind batches of 50.

There are some experiments that are impractical.

Some because of their scope.

Some because you are potentially fucking up the lives of real human beings.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[bluefoxlucid]

I'd say that's cultural. I don't think the Japanese have such a thing, but I'm not sure their language allows that level of corruption. I mean there's stuff like anata becoming anta, etc, but that's used between close friends and is a standard language feature rather than an improper corruption. It's informal. From a young age, children learn to speak up to those unfamiliar or in a higher class (elders, teachers, employers) with deference, and to those unfamiliar (peers) with ... less deference, yet still quite formal speaking ... and to those extremely familiar in a more casual manner.

It's not like in English, where we go "uhwuzza wuzzat you wanna bana nana?" at kids and people go "what the fuck did you get a piece of rebar reamed into your skull lady?" Consequently, I'm rather certain this is "we saw this all over and this is normal so do it."

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[bluefoxlucid]

I've been learning Japanese lately but my Hiragana is undeveloped. Been lazy with it though, I've had the language course for like a year now and I've gone through about 30 hours of study, with only 14 lessons so far... on average, I've done each twice. I need to pick up the pace; I have no real exposure. Same with German... it's amazing I can still chitchat with the girl at the meat market and order my food in Deutsch. (Aside, I strangely associate the original language with shit when I learn a language... like I'll say English, Nihongo, Nihon, Deutsch, Deutschland, etc, reflexively once I start learning the language of the area... dunno why.)

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[ender-]

We didn't really aim to cultivate precocity. We just wanted her to grow up hearing proper speech so she learned that first instead of the 'baby-bonics' of 'baba' and 'wawa'. As for her math, I was basically being facetious. She's not as advanced in her math as she is with her speech/reading, but she's still a bit ahead of most of her class. She just is picking up the reading more quickly.

If my wife and I were total asses, we probably could have pushed her day-in and day-out to advance academically at the expense of everything else and she could probably have been one of those poor kids who graduate HS at 12 and get their PhD at 19 or whatever. But that's not the kind of [sad] life we want for our kid. We read to her at bed time (or have her read to us), we guide her to do things for herself when possible. She actually enjoys doing vocabulary and math workbooks, so I'm not exactly going to tell her no. But on the flip side, she likes watching cartoons and playing computer games, so she spends as much of her spare time watching mindless pap as she does working her brain.

I think the only way I've failed her thus far is her physical fitness. She's not fat [she usually makes healthy eating choices] but she has no strength at all. I'm working on getting her outside more and strong enough to actually pedal her little bike, but it's a slow process. I figure all of her calories are going to her brain...

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[dave562]

Are you and your wife physically active? Do you like going for bike rides, going to the park, swimming, etc (on a regular basis)? Kids learn most of their behaviors through modeling.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[eugene ts wong]

Good on her, for the word correction, but I think that she chose the wrong word. Looking into a class shouldn't distract. It's the walking past that would do it. "Disturb" might be better, in that it might make students inside the class wonder why they are being looked at. Before they even notice that they are being looked at, they are being distracted.

I think that they both chose the words that reflected what they are trying to communicate, but the fact is that looking doesn't distract.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[toadlife]

While I don't think skipping the baby talk would be bad for language development, I think you might be taking credit for too much there.

I have three kids. The oldest didn't say much of anything until he was three, but was extremely bright at math once he entered school. He is seven now and it a wiz at math and at a normal pace in language arts.

Our second talked earlier and is now reading at a 2nd grade level in kindergarten, but is at a normal level in math.

There are clear differences in each childs personality. The first, the "math wiz", has my personality. I'm an IT person and like him excelled in math in school and did okay at language arts.

The second, the reading wiz, has my wife's personality. She is working on her MA in English literature and was reading Shakespeare in 2nd grade.

As far as I know we treated both the same - or at least we made no effort to treat any of them differently.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[ender-]

Well, we used to be, before we had a kid. We do have a pool so we do swim, but many of the physical activities we used to do, we haven't done for some time.

However I am aiming to change that. As a matter of fact, just this past weekend I finally bought a new bike. I used to ride [bmx/freestyle] EVERYWHERE when I was young, but had gotten out of the habit. I plan to ride frequently now, and hopefully that will motivate her to want to learn to ride so she can ride with us.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[ender-]

Granted, it's hard to tell how much of her current ability involved her natural abilities versus the way we've treated and interacted with her. The old 'nature vs. nurture' argument. It's entirely likely that she just has a natural predilection for language. But I'm fairly certain that given her natural abilities, she's further along now because we spoke in complete sentences and explained in detail everything that we did, than she would have been had we not done so.

And though she's not as strong in math, because we've always worked with her in as natural a way as possible (explaining money, having her help pull change, and count things), she's probably further along now than she would have been had we not done that as well.

As I said though, I'm hardly an expert on child development, so I could be wrong. :)

And there's certainly the chance that she might reach a given level of ability in either of those things, then progress no further, allowing her classmates to catch up. I suspect not though as both my wife and I are fairly intelligent. [Relative to the general population anyway. I think I hang around in the wrong circles where I sometimes feel inadequate in my intelligence.]

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Luckyo]

You do realise that "across the globe" counts a whole lot more then these three?

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[ifiwereasculptor]

The teacher struggled to find the right word when she told them that the other classes might find it 'disturbing'. My daughter immediately pipes up and corrects her, saying, "Actually, I think you mean 'distracting'."

It is very interesting that she did that, but not exactly justifiable. In a lot of cases, like this one, those words are pretty much interchangeable (a class - especially in kindergarten - requires attention to proceed smoothly, therefore distraction is disturbance). I find it curious that she phrased it as a correction instead of a question, like "do you mean 'distracting'?". I hope it's not the case, but I've seen my share of obnoxious kids with a certain excess of self-confidence and such behaviour is quite typical. Soon enough she might be commenting on /.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[chill]

Because normal speech is what the child hears when anyone else converses. If I or my wife are speaking to each other, or to the other kids, or on the phone, etc. it is all "normal" speech. I assumed, rightly or wrongly, that "baby talk" would add an element of confusion for the child as it isn't reinforced by what they are immersed in.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[chill]

I don't think evolution has anything to do with babytalk at all. And as far as everyone else's natural instincts -- after seeing what can pass for "common sense" in the world, then "yes", I think I do know better.

My logic was that the child hears "normal" adult speech everywhere else to the point of being immersed in it. Conversations between my wife, myself, my kids, and anyone else are all "normal" speech. Baby talk isn't reinforced at all, whereas "normal" speech is.

We also started teaching the little one ASL (American Sign Language) because kids can more easily communicate. They know what they want to say long before their little mouths and vocal cords can form the proper words.

At a year old my little one could not only say they wanted a drink, but would specify milk, water, orange juice or apple juice and would correct us if we brought the wrong one. All that in ASL, long before any comprehensible speech.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[screwzloos]

At least from my observations, this seems to be because western parents born around/after the baby boomer era generally don't spank their kids anymore. Damn hippies. Sure, the whole positive reinforcement vs. negative reinforcement idea sounds good in theory, but children really need to have active repercussions for talking back or screaming when they don't get what they want. Otherwise their mindset is that they can do whatever, whenever, and sometimes even get rewarded for it. I've seen this kind of development twice with step-siblings that my parents couldn't hit.

My parents made no pretense with me of "this will hurt me more than it hurts you". I occasionally even got the belt when I acted out. Like my parents and their parents before them, when I got disciplined, it was for my own good. I'll certainly be spanking my children if they scream at me or act out. If I ever have any.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Onymous Coward]

Arguably, self-confidence -- however extreme, so long as it's commensurate with ability -- is not bad per se. Contempt for others less able is the real problem.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Lemmy Caution]

I am a big fan of the power of mindless pap as a pedagogical resource! Or, at least as a short-term baby-sitting tactic.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[ender-]

It is very interesting that she did that, but not exactly justifiable. In a lot of cases, like this one, those words are pretty much interchangeable (a class - especially in kindergarten - requires attention to proceed smoothly, therefore distraction is disturbance). I find it curious that she phrased it as a correction instead of a question, like "do you mean 'distracting'?". I hope it's not the case, but I've seen my share of obnoxious kids with a certain excess of self-confidence and such behaviour is quite typical. Soon enough she might be commenting on /.

You know, that's a good point. We do try to get her to be gracious in things, and not be a 'know it all', but sometimes I miss things. I'm going to make a point to suggest she put something like that in a less 'corrective' tone in the future. She's also a very cute kid, to the point where we constantly have people going out of their way to come over and comment on it. It's a bit embarrassing really for me at least, as an introverted geek. For awhile her response would be "Yeah, I know". We've had to explain that that is a bit of a rude response, and to just be gracious and say, "Thank you". Guess we need to do the same thing with her 'need to be right' corrective attitude. There's a reason we call her "The enforcer" :)

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Thing 1]

"Believe it or not, I'm walking on air"

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[djdavetrouble]

It didn't come with a manual, but for the obsessive parent, luckily there are hundreds of aftermarket guides, beginning with the ubiquitous Dr. Spock' Guide.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't even give girls names, much less educate them. Ancient Chinese culture isn't the happy-happy-peaceful-Buddha-loving country that everyone seems to think it is. It was just as backwards and despotic as imperial Rome with a little Egypt mixed in.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[darkpixel2k]

But my baby can read

Forget learning to read. My son was signing at 6 months old. Not real well--but he could communicate what he wanted well enough.
Kids are able to pick up on sign language and communicate before they are able to properly form vocal sounds.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Laser Dan]

I've been learning Japanese lately but my Hiragana is undeveloped. Been lazy with it though, I've had the language course for like a year now and I've gone through about 30 hours of study, with only 14 lessons so far... on average, I've done each twice. I need to pick up the pace; I have no real exposure.

I have found that the only way to make progress in learning Japanese (and probably other languages) is to do a structured course where you are forced to continue at a regular pace once you start. Otherwise you just keep learning a bit, then leave it a while, then forget and re-learn. I have heaps of learning software but I never use it, so don't progress.

In the first Japanese course I did, the first lesson or 2 were in roman characters to cover the basic structure, then we covered hiragana in one lesson and all following lessons had no roman characters. The following week added katakana. If you actually try (as we were forced to), everyone was able to read (slowly) most hiragana in a week and write them a week later. Same with katakana. Then 5-10 kanji a week after that. If you actually study and use it it's not that hard... but most people just can't be bothered if it can be avoided (me included). Kids probably learn faster partly because they haven't grown so lazy yet.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[RancidPeanutOil]

Child preference is not "known" for baby-talk - the studies that indicate that can easily be explained by the high frequency differentials involved in motherese, in the same way that bright, primary colors stimulate their visual field. Stimulation that elicits laughter doesn't necessarily mean preference, and if it does, it still does not indicate higher differential utility than other stimulus, such as adult talk. What cognitive scientists are trying (or would like to be trying) to discover is the effect of these different patterns on first language acquisition and development. There is still a pitched battle raging on nature vs. nurture in the area of child language acquisition, and if there is, in fact, a difference, there is money to be made and careers to be launched. If evolution has fostered baby-talk to optimally stimulate language development, then great. If there is rather some other optimal method, if humans can acquire language more efficiently, then all bets are off. I like to imagine in the latter scenario a global arms race in infant socialization techniques.

It is SO HARD to get ethics committee approval for the proper experiments, of course.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[kmoser]

You know who else wanted to bring back Prussia?

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Hognoxious]

How about this?.

A bit tongue in cheek, but still useful.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[YttriumOxide]

My third son is growing up "bi-lingual." His mother is Japanese and I am a native English speaker.

I'm about to become a father (next month) and we also plan on raising our daughter bi-lingual. My wife is German and I'm a native English speaker (and we live in Germany).

I've been reading a great deal on the subject of bi-lingual children, and the most common theme I keep coming across is that around age 3, they're likely to be less skilled than their peers at both languages (so, my daughter's German won't be as good as 3 year old Germans, and her English won't be as good as a 3 year old native English speaker) and often "mix" the languages by mistake; however by the time they reach 5, they tend to catch up and can communicate in both languages with the expected fluency (or higher) than their peers.

Another point that was stressed in most texts I read is that if the parents divide the languages (as we plan to do and it seems you have done), that when the child asks or says something in the "wrong" language to a parent, that the parent repeat it back in the "right" language. e.g. My daughter comes to me and says, "Wasser!", I'll ask, "Would you like a glass of water?" or vice-versa she says, "Water!" to my wife, my wife's response will be, "Willst du ein Glas Wasser?". This helps to reinforce the differences and avoid language mixing as well as giving the child the comprehension that not everyone will speak every language they know.

Generally the above all seems to make sense, but I'm far from taking anything as absolute truth - every child will of course be different, and so I can only hope things go well for us with our daughter. If she develops a talent and passion for languages like her Dad, I'll also happily teach her French, Dutch and Japanese, but I don't want to force anything on her beyond German and English.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Black Gold Alchemist]

I think the only way I've failed her thus far is her physical fitness

You don't need to. I'm gonna anger a lot of people by saying this, but physical fitness is not really important. In a world where one can buy a $600 dollar part that can convert bioenergy into mechanical power at a 10X the power to weight ratio of a human being, it's not really all that important.

Oh, and mindless junk is important. Video games are the reason my first job was coding, not washing dishes. I was allowed unlimited game time assuming I finished all my school work. Guess what? I got bored of the games. So I wanted to write my own. I did. Then I discovered my coding skills worked for robotics and web dev. Then I found out that I could write applications for doing "business" stuff. So, one of the reasons I am where I am today is because of mindless junk.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[RancidPeanutOil]

The point is that however reasonable it might be, we now have at least one structured study (albeit on only one subject group), where we can say, look, modified speech is whatever% shorter than non-modified speech, the child's acquisition proceeded by this amount in this period of time, the complexity of the utterances was some degree less than normal speech based specifically on these verb/Det/prep phrases, these certain grammatical structures were characterized spontaneously by caregivers as "simpler," etc. If we get another cognitive scientist to do it, we'll have another dataset. A few more centuries and thousands of recorded case studies of phonotactics, timing, and intonation, and we'll be able to discover if 4 billion years of evolution really offers the optimal acquisition solution. Evolution is case dependent, there's lots of room for improvement to the human condition. It also wouldn't hurt to suss out the whole "module" structure of human grammar, perception and production - if only to understand ourselves better, if not to create really bitchin' NLP A.I.s

I've forgotten where I heard the quote - something like, if your Grandmother knew it, don't do a paper on it. That's simply not the case in cognitive science/language acquisition. Everything we know about language is mostly wrong, and built on popular misconceptions. We can all speak competently to communicate, but humans are not therefore language specialists - I know when a car isn't working, because things are exploding or not moving, but it doesn't mean I can lay out a detailed plan to build a great car.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[cerberusss]

You didn't get the Manual? Heck, you can download it on PDF now!

I'm not going to spoonfeed those instructions to my baby. Let the little critter download it himself.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Kashgarinn]

It's good research. Meaning it's not just because he says how he did it (and might be lying, or misremembering the truth, or have a case of truthiness), he can prove it every step of the way with evidence.

For instance, your anecdote is not provable, you can't show me or anyone else a single proof that what you say is the truth, that's why it's an anecdote, as believable as a lie.

There's far more lies in our world then truths based on real evidence, and this man has paved the way to establish the learning procedure between parent and child, I wouldn't be surprised if this would in the future help people by developing better methods of teaching your child.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[martinX]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss what you call baby-bonics. Words are made up of simple sounds and this is what babies are trying to do. We encourage them by making those sounds back. From mastering those little things, they move on to bigger and better things.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[martinX]

Your wife interested in photographs, eh? Know what I mean? Photographs, 'he asked him knowingly'. Nudge nudge. Snap snap. Grin grin, wink wink, say no more?

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Rubinstien]

I agree with the observation that reinforcing behaviors are deliberate. My wife and I discussed exactly how to handle these issues on an ongoing basis. It was also my habit to spend a lot of time with both daughters, walking around and observing things, pointing out, explaining, and reading every street sign or anything else that presented an opportunity. Language is incredibly important. Beyond this is the part where I disagree -- "short sentences" are *not* obvious. I actually have clear memories of learning to speak and read, and I *hated* it when people spoke down to me. So I did not do that with my daughters. No baby talk. Use complete sentences. Use the correct word, even if it is not common vocabulary, etc. Of course, if my kids had not been capable of learning from this I am sure I would have reverted to tradition, but that did not happen. Both began speaking very early, and learned rapidly.

I don't recall specifics around 18 months, but I do know that my older daughter was reading well before she turned 3, because we read together every night and I would write the date that she first read a book on her own inside the front cover. I remember the exact book that convinced me that this wasn't just a good memory: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679832696/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=3878470371&ref=pd_sl_17n0twlwjr_e#reader_0679832696 (P.J. FunnyBunny Camps Out). She read that out loud to me about 3 months before her third birthday, without any help from me, and without anyone having read it to her first. After a year of preschool at age 3, we were convinced that a second year of it would be a waste of time, especially when she would recognize misspellings on paperwork the administrator was sending home to parents. We found a private kindergarten that would take her if she passed an interview and made it through a class (this while she was still 3, in order to register for the fall classes that would start a few weeks before she turned 4). During her class time, she took to walking around the class to help the other kids with their work, including writing names for those kids that did not know how to write their own yet. I remember the kindergarten teacher being shocked that she had correctly spelled "Christopher" for one of those kids.

Daughter two has always been a little more difficult to assess. I can't tell you when she learned to read. Before she was 3, she confirmed with me that she had read the phrases on two signs in a parking lot correctly, after we took her to get glasses to correct for her "lazy eye". This was in the parking lot of the optometrist, when I was putting her into the car seat while her mother was still inside paying the bill. I believe she was just validating that her glasses were working properly. After that, she refused to perform -- would not even read the same signs to her mother. I would read to her every night just like I had with her sister, but she refused to ever read for me. I was convinced that she understood how to do it, she just did not want to. When she went to preschool, we would hear gushing reports from her teachers about how well she read, but never got any demonstration of it at home. Likewise it went, on up through the other grades. She is in second grade now, and I am still reading to her every night and she still refuses to read out loud for me, except when it is a homework assignment. My wife helps out with the school, doing math and reading assessments, and daughter two is in the "advanced readers" group. My wife says she is so far ahead of the other "advanced readers" that it is like night and day. She does read voraciously on her own now, having just completed several of the Harry Potter novels. I had recently read a few of the "Illustrated Classics" versions of some of Jack London's books to her, including White Fang and Call of the Wild. Tonight she told me she doesn't like the simplified

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[martinX]

Give it up. Just buy bigger pants.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[erroneus]

Different children resist language differently. I have a friend who is Korean and both parents speak Korean to their children. However, their oldest girl prefers to speak English as she thinks English is better... but also, I suspect, she thinks Korean (or her parents) is less cool and does not want to be like them.

I am astounded that my 3rd son never let go of English and even improved his English while away for 6 months. He has always shown preference to me over his mother in many respects and I think English is one of the things he attributes to me. However, he has other favorite things which are Japanese -- video entertainment for example. We have some videos with both English and Japanese audio tracks and even from the earliest age, he refused to watch a show in one language while preferring the other. (Curious George must be in English and Japanese cartoons must be in Japanese)

I don't make a clear division between languages as that would be nearly impossible. I am not fluent in Japanese though I can understand a lot. So the conversational language between the wife and I is English. The boy sees this.

Though I am in my early 40s, I still remember clearly what it was like learning my first language. And I mean CLEARLY. When I was a child, I heard "blah blah blah eat blah blah" and eventually "blah blah blah eat blah sandwich" and more until the gaps were filled over time through context. (In fact, he actually repeats what he thinks he hears! When referring to Curious George, he babbles "diga-diga-diga-diga-diga- George!" and I recognized this pattern immediately from my own experience as a child... it just happens that to his ears, Japanese spoken rapidly sounds like "diga-diga-diga-diga-diga-" and, frankly, it still sounds like that to me sometimes.) So I know exactly what my son is going through learning language. We adults tend to draw distinction between different languages because we grew up learning one, then some of another. But in the case of young children, it is all just "language." (Think of it as the difference between polite/formal speech and casual/slang only with more differences.)

By teaching the division of vocabulary between father and mother, they are learning the distinction between one language set and another. Fortunately, English and German share common sounds and structure. It should be easy. Japanese and English share nothing. But still things are progressing.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Rubinstien]

I had originally started reading this article and started to comment, then had to leave for several hours. Came back and finished my comment, which was regarding our decision for "No Baby Talk" with our daughters. Now I see that many others here have made similar choices, so we are not alone, even if it seems that way to us.

You can read that comment here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2026642&cid=35416946

I would like to reassure others that I so far see no sign that what Lemmy here says is true. Daughter one is 15 years old now, ahead of her peers in school with respect to her age, well adjusted, in all honors classes in a tough school system. She is a successful artist, with some of her artwork on display currently in Washington, D.C., and a talented musician, playing seven instruments and currently a member of three orchestras, one of them at the national level. She isn't currently taking an art class so that she can fit in three years of Japanese and double up on sciences, intending to double up on art classes next year -- this arrangement being the only way to fit things into her schedule. She intends to take C++ programming classes next year if she will be allowed to drop her study hall. She isn't "cognitively engineered" at all. We keep her engaged, and we support her in whatever way we can, but she motivates herself. Her biggest problem is that there isn't enough time to do everything she would like. She has played soccer for ten years, but dropped off the team at her high school this year because it consumed too much time. Many of her friends are just like her.

Daughter two (7 now) shows every sign that she's heading along the same route.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[bluefoxlucid]

. Sure, the whole positive reinforcement vs. negative reinforcement idea sounds good in theory, but children really need to have active repercussions for talking back or screaming when they don't get what they want.

Oh fuck you, i can stand in the corner longer than you can stay mad bitch.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[ender-]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss what you call baby-bonics. Words are made up of simple sounds and this is what babies are trying to do. We encourage them by making those sounds back. From mastering those little things, they move on to bigger and better things.

The baby-bonics is important for the baby to use though, not for the parents. When the baby starts using 'baba' [we were thrilled!], it seems to me that if as a parent you use 'baba', it would reinforce that 'baba' is the right word. Because at that stage *MOST* of what the baby actually understands is tone and inflection, it makes more sense to say something with a positive inflection/tone like, "That's right, bottle" or "Oh, do you want your bottle?", as you hand them the bottle. I think that might give them the positive feedback that they've started saying it while letting them hear what it should eventually end up sounding like. This should have the baby thinking [in non-verbal terms of course], "Well, I said 'baba' and that got the point across, and they were happy, but they keep saying 'bottle' so that must be what it should sound like once I gain full control of my vocal ability."

Obviously my one child anecdote != data. I'd love to see a long-term wide-spread study done on stuff like this.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[bluefoxlucid]

then forget and re-learn.

I never forget. In fact, I haven't studied Hiragana since 2 years ago, but every time I see Hiragana on food products at the store I recognize more somehow; but that is odd. I never forget spoken language though; when I was doing german, I would do a lesson once, stop for 3 months, then do the NEXT lesson starting cold.

Learning to read and write is hard. I am about as skilled with American cursive script as I am with Hiragana.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[erdraug]

Nope, still anecdote.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Quirkz]

On the other hand, I know parents who quite effectively use "time out" to teach their kids lessons. It doesn't have to be actual, physical pain to teach kids, it just has to be something the kid registers as a punishment. I've seen obnoxious kids shrug off a spanking with "that didn't hurt" and other kids genuinely contrite when they realize their actions were time-out-worthy.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[Nadaka]

Giggity.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[stewbacca]

Of course it's true. Unless you have an MAEd., I'll just go with my qualifications for now.

Children everywhere on the planet have similar cognitive development rates, that are measurable and predictable, and have been labeled by cognitivists like Piaget. These same developmental milestones are what are used to form educational systems across the globe. It isn't by chance or by religion that schools are grouped by "elementary, middle, and secondary" (with variations, depending on country). It's because of the way the human life form grows at similar rates and reaches similar milestones at the same ages everywhere on the planet.

I can't help it that some societies like the ones you cited want to live two centuries ago and don't educate their children. But if they did, they'd start "Kindergarten" or whatever it would be called in their language, at about age 5, because that's the appropriate age and cognitive development for humans.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[stewbacca]

Not to mention that US education is not that old. As recently as the 1940s the graduation rate was under 50%. Before 1880, most kids didn't go to school except the most privileged, urban families. We Amuricans don't got no long history of edumication as one would like to think.

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[stewbacca]

No, they can't. And babies can't read either. My point was sarcastic, but evidently nobody got it ;-)

There's also the "which glass has more water in it" scenario. (I don't remember the exact age or level of development, but) children of two different developmental stages (say 2 and 7 years old) where shown two glasses of water. One glass was tall and skinny, the other short and fat. The short glass had twice as much water in it, but the 2 year olds always pick the taller glass, because the water goes up higher, so there's obviously more of it right?

Re:"Unconsciously stress?"

[naoursla]

Please explain.

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!????

[da]

Oh, er, hang on...

Duh?

[wmbetts]

Has anyone with kids not observed this?

Re:Duh?

[VortexCortex]

My first word wasn't "Dada" or "Mama"... It was "Light". My parents have a home video of the event; It happened to be my cousin Mike's birthday party and my father was carrying me as he turned off the light when they brought in the cake with 8 burning candles. I can clearly be heard saying "Light" as he turns off the switch and seen reaching for the switch, but no one noticed at the time.

A few minutes later they turn the light back on and I say "Light" again. This time people take notice -- They say, "Oh, look, he's saying 'Mike', daaaaww! It's his first word!" My parents seem somewhat surprised since I hadn't even babbled Mama, or Dada -- I was a "quiet and thoughtful" child they would later tell me. For the next several minutes I'm quiet, bashful seeming almost, as everyone tries to "reinforce" my "word birth" by getting me to say the wrong damn word -- "Mike... Mike... Can you say Mike?"

Later, when I'm brought near the light switch again I reach for it, say "light", and manage to turn off the switch and laugh as the lights go out.

My father says, "I think its 'light' he's saying". I'm allowed to play with the switch turning on and off the light as my father holds me and says, "Is that what you're saying? Are you trying to say "light" little guy?" Once again I say, "light" (not "Mike", and not subject to particularly short or repetitious "reinforcement" sentences) -- Clearly, I've been trying to tell my family that I want to play with the switch, and could not be deterred by their collective incorrect word reinforcement.

To note: I doubt it would have mattered what damn fool words the oafish apes were trying to "teach" me via reinforcement at the time; I wanted the damn light switch and was determined to get them to understand. You see, I had already learned the word -- They weren't teaching me a new word; I was attempting to communicate with them.

The remaining film is full of failed attempts to get me to say Mama and Dada over at least several days in various locations and times -- I'm sure the 35 minutes of tape is just a small sampling of the hours my parents admit to having coached me in this fashion. The home movie concludes with me saying my 2nd word: "Damn. Damn damn! Damn Damn Damn!" while my mother scolds my father for swearing in front of me... (Another "word birth" that they did not "reinforce"... In fact, I'm told that I continued to use the word long after it had been removed from my parents vocabularies.)

In short: Everyone is different; I was "late" to begin talking; When I did it was as if my vocabulary already contained many words, but I was just beginning to use them -- Some words, like "Car", I would say once, get wrong, and not attempt to say again for a long time (weeks -- enough time to study the pronunciation, apparently). As my annunciation became more clear, the words I said were more numerous, longer and more complex phonetically. It appears that my language skills were learned long before I attempted to speak, and to this day my favorite saying is: "If you're going to do something, do it correctly."

"Reinforced word birth" may well help some children, but as any parent that has cursed in front of their child and had them repeat the word(s) at an inopportune moment will tell you: Not all "word births" are "reinforced" or welcome for that matter. Perhaps "naughty words" are a special class of language that for some reason come naturally to all children -- or perhaps the reinforcement upon vocalization theory is just one small piece of the complex behavior of language development.

Another slashdot infomercial...

[bigsexyjoe]

Okay, he recorded his child. Has he made a theoretical breakthrough? Not much of one mentioned in the article. All it says is.. surprise, surprise... this guy is starting a new company he wants to promote. And it is based on this incredible software that this article doesn't really explain to us.

Re:Another slashdot infomercial...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I for one think that any decent software that can parse that amount of data into any kind of useful and repeatable refined data is interesting.
Especially if it does the vocal analysis automatically... It could be very interesting to analyze peoples speech patterns in any number of social interactions.
I'm not sure it would be GOOD science but fun?

Lets for instance say we have 4 IT admins hanging by the watercooler and the really hot intern walks by and shows his stuff off. Yes, his. I work in a female dominated workplace and they are just as bad as us guys, theyre just a little more discreet about it.

Re:Another slashdot infomercial...

[Wendelcrow]

Fail on login. That last comment was mine.

Re:Another slashdot infomercial...

[dogmatixpsych]

That's because it's for the magazine Fast Company (I used to get it for free for some reason but thankfully it's stopped coming), which is geared towards entrepreneurs (it's not a particularly good magazine).

Re:Another slashdot infomercial...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fail on login. That last comment was mine.

I say you are an impostor. The comment was obviously mine.

Very Cool

[Stenchwarrior]

It's amazing to watch a human learn the art of speech. I wish I had begun recording at my daughter's first sounds and continued while they evolved into the full sentences she carries on now at three years old. Unless you have a chronicle of such events it's hard to remember when they could only say a few words, especially when it's hard to get them to stop talking long enough to eat dinner. Even as parents the speech patterns change as the child is old enough to understand and repeat...although there's not much funnier than hearing a toddler say "goddamnit", or "son of a bitch" - I think that's the entire premise that South Park was built on.

Re:Very Cool

[Stenchwarrior]

Uh, I have kids...I don't leave the house.

Re:Very Cool

[Stenchwarrior]

Correction, I don't leave the house unless it's to drop one off or pick one up. So yeah, that shit's funny.

Re:Very Cool

[gknoy]

Having a toddler is often at odds with getting out of the house more. :) That said, I agree with the GP. My wife and I have been in hysterics at some of the things my son says, especially when we have to find a reason to explain that certain words are not things he is allowed to say at school or in front of Grandma (even if she and I are not offended by them), and that that word is not a color with which you can paint your boat.

I think the amusement comes from the conflicts in social expectations. We (as parents) know that kids are expected not to say some words, and yet we don't want to characterize them as bad words. They're good words, very descriptive, sometimes the Right Word. (When my son said, "Dammit, that won't work!", he was using it pretty much spot-on correctly.) However, we want to communicate that he's not supposed to say them around other people, etc. We're amused because he's saying something very silly ("I'm going to paint my boat yellow, and orange, and F---. F, F, F, F, F ..... ") and nonsensical, and reconciling that with the feeling of "Oh god, he can't say that!!", because we have to question why he shouldn't say it.

All that is just handwaving in an attempt to justify the breath-impairing amusement we feel when our son says something like that. It's funny. Now if only I could find a way to satisfactorily answer him as to why the dinosaurs died.

Useful data

[Animats]

This is very useful data. We're going to know considerably more about how language really works once this is analyzed.

A few more people need to do this, for comparison and confirmation. It also needs to be done for a tonal language, like Chinese.

Re:Useful data

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very useful data. We're going to know considerably more about how language really works once this is analyzed.

Never mind that - we could find out more about how the "boot process" of the infant human brain works when it extracts meaning from context alone. This has profound implications for understanding language development and autism spectrum disorders, and I am saddened to see that this research isn't going in that direction.

Scientist discovers feedback...

[KRL]

...news at 11!

Re: uncle Froyd is in need

[chill]

Do you mean Freud, as in Sigmund Freud?

I'm still working on "expose the childhood". Do you mean "exploit"? I'm hoping you didn't mean "expose the manhood", then he would not only need Freud, but a good lawyer!

Fuck 'em!

[Onuma]

Generally speaking...that IS how babies are born.

How I see the process

[Abstrackt]

I think we always learn languages the same way, the only difference between a baby and an adult learning is that the baby doesn't have a first language to fall back on so their need to learn to communicate is greater.

Watching my first kid learn to speak was like watching myself try to learn Spanish. First, was total immersion and a complete lack of understanding. Eventually, there were attempts at copying the sounds; these attempts eventually led into attempts at forming words. Once the vocabulary reached a certain level words got combined to form simple sentences with noises and pointing to fill in the rest. From there, you're relatively close to having a full conversation.

Re:How I see the process

[darksideofmoon]

I'm taking an introductory Psych class and I just finished up a chapter on Language Acquisition. A note on how you saw mirrors of yourself learning Spanish and your first child:

After a child is first born, they are actually able to hear all sounds made by all languages, and that incessant babbling (you can tell I don't have kids) is actually something all babies do and reflect all the sounds of all languages in the world. These babbling sounds are made up of "phonemes", the simplest amount of sound. I've seen a few comments here poo-pooing this video as a waste of time and only a way to promote his business, but it actually reveals something interesting: all babies babble all the phonemes in the world, and they do it in the same order, which is remarkable. A baby in China babbles in the same pattern that an American child babbles.

Once the child begins to hear the words of their parents mother tongue, they begin to lose the phonemes of other languages. So much so, that they (and adults too), can't even hear other phonemes. For instance, a Japanese-native speaker can't pronounce the letter "L". It comes out as an "R" sound. However, if that same person was grown up in an American family, they would be able to speak that "L" sound.

So back to your Spanish learning, there may be some sounds in the language that you can't possibly hear or say, because the phonemes of the language were "removed" from your comprehension way back when you were a child.

I believe I have that all correctly. I haven't got back the results from my midterm that I just had the other day, and I may have crashed and burned this comment.

correlation not causation

[lkcl]

whilst this is interesting, it is a statistical sample of one family and one family only, albeit a rather long sample. we do not, for example, "modify our sentence structure to repeat more frequently words when immediately learned", but we do find ourselves using words which we know that baby lilyana now knows, in order to more include her in our day-to-day lives: there's a subtle difference.

one clarification: the article seems to be pointing out that it is through speech that the child "trains" the adults (not the other way round), the possible mistaken implication being that it is exclusively by speech that children get their adults to adapt to them. in fact, children do a hell of a lot more than use words to get their adults to do their bidding!

as lilyana is 23 months, we will be leaving it another 6 months or so for her to basically do as she pleases, when she pleases, with us supporting her at every step, so that she gets a chance to see how the world works _without_ being made massively and irrevocably insecure or limited by "no" [except when it's dangerous!].

Re:correlation not causation

[lwsimon]

While I understand where you're coming from, I have a 2.5 year old, too. She's rarely told no, but often told the consequences of her actions first.

She snapped her hand good with a rubber band a couple of days ago. I told her she would, and she looked at me, at the rubber band, then pulled it back and snapped it. Ten seconds of tears, and off to another experiment to see how stuff works ;0)

Re:correlation not causation

[bluefoxlucid]

This is another reason why teaching young children (4 year olds are pretty good, oddly enough...) to play Go is a good idea. The learning process of Go is simple:

1. You make an underplay.
2. You get boxed in.
3. You lose.
4. You make an overplay.
5. You get cut.
6. You lose.
7. Go to 4; however, the overplay will be smaller.

You QUICKLY learn you can't do certain shit because bad things happen. Then the games get more complex because you play stronger players, less handicap, etc. You know you can't do certain shit, but you start examining the positions thinking, "Can I get away with this?" You start thinking it out, playing through in your head... it's called "reading." More and more... deeper, as deep as you can... until you know just exactly what you can get away with before you go into it, or what the consequences of your actions will be.

It starts happening in real life pretty fucking fast. You look at shit and go, "... wait. ............... no, screw that."

Poor Kid

[Tablizer]

I'd hate to be the kid of such a scientist. Imagine growing up and running for public office, only to have "Bobby's Daily Poop Length Chart" show up on the internet.

babys/LSI/w+dog; prepping since forever for this

[Anonymous Coward]

the time for 'words' is shrinking? see you at the play-dates. be there or be scared.

we do have some intentions;

1. DEWEAPONIZATION (not a real word, but they like it) almost nothing else good happens until some progress here.

2. ALL BABYS CREATED/TO BE TREATED, EQUALLY. (a rough interpretation (probably cost us. seems like a no-brainer but they expressed that we fail on that one too(:)->) 'we do not need any 300$ 'strollers', or even to ride in your smelly cars/planes etc..., until such time as ALL of the creators' innocents have at least food, shelter, & some loving folks nearby.' again, this is a deal breaker, so pay attention, that's cheap enough, & could lead to our survival?

3. THOU SHALT NOT VACCINATE IRRESPONSIBLY. this appears to be a stop-gap intention.

the genuine feelings expressed included; in addition to the lack of acknowledgment of the advances/evolution of our tiny bodies/dna (including consciousness & intellect), almost nobody knows anymore what's in those things (vaccines) (or they'd tell us), & there's rumor much of it is less than good (possibly fatal) for ANY of us. if it were good for us we'd be gravitating towards it, instead of it being shoved in our little veins, wrecking them, & adversely affecting our improving immune systems/dna/development? at rite-aid, they give the mommies 100$ if they let them stick their babys with whoknowswhat? i can see why they're (the little ones) extremely suspicious? they're also asking that absolutely nobody be allowed to insert those corepirate nazi 'identity' 'chips' in their tiny frames. they know who they, and we, are, much better than we ever will? many, oddly? have fading inclinations to want to be reporters of nefarious life threatening processes, ie. 'conspiracies', as they sincerely believe that's 'stuff that REALLY matters', but they KNOW that things are going to be out in the open soon, so they intend to put their ever increasing consciousness, intellect, acute/astute senses & information gathering abilities, to the care & feeding of their fellow humans. no secrets to cover up with that goal.

4. AN END TO MANUFACTURED 'WEATHER'.

sortie like a no-(aerosol tankers)-fly zone being imposed over the whole planet. the thinking is, the planet will continue to repair itself, even if we stop pretending that it's ok/nothing's happening. after the weather manipulation is stopped (& it will be) it could get extremely warm/cold/blustery some days. many of us will be moving inland..., but we'll (most of us anyway) be ok, so long as we keep our heads up. conversely, the manufactured 'weather' puts us in a state of 'theater' that allows US to think that we needn't modify our megaslothian heritage of excessiveness/disregard for ourselves, others, what's left of our environment etc...? all research indicates that spraying chemicals in the sky is 100% detrimental to our/planet's well being (or they'd talk to US about it?). as for weather 'extremes', we certainly appear to be in a bleeding rash of same, as well as all that bogus seismic activity, which throws our advanced tiny baby magnets & chromosomes into crisis/escape mode, so that's working? we're a group whose senses are more available to us (like monkeys?) partly because we're not yet totally distracted by the foibles of man'kind'. the other 'part' is truly amazing. we saw nuclear war being touted on PBS as an environmental repair tool (?depopulation? (makes the babys' 'accountants' see dark red:-(-? yikes. so what gives? thanks for your patience & understanding while we learn to express our intentions. everybody has some. let us know. come to some of our million baby play-dates. no big hurry? catch your breath. we'll wait a bit more. thanks.

do the math. check out YOUR dna/intentional healing potential. thanks again.

Link

[balbus000]

to the project's official page.

wait till he has a daughter and then compare

[Corporate Gadfly]

I did not RTFA, in pure /. fashion, but I'm wondering what would have happened if the author of the study had a girl. Every child develops their language skills on their own individual schedule, however, in my relatively small experience, girls tend to talk quicker than boys. My 18-month boy is struggling to say mama, dada, and banana, while my daughter at that age was stringing together a few words together. My wife's freaking out and is considering speech therapy if he doesn't talk by 2 years of age. My son seems to comprehend fine. He knows when I tell him to go take a bath or when to go sit in a timeout (a little early to start with timeout, isn't it? but at this point it's to get him used to the idea more than anything) and knows when I tell him to go get his boots.

Re:wait till he has a daughter and then compare

[emj]

when to go sit in a timeout (a little early to start with timeout, isn't it?.

The modern age dunce cap, a wonderful tool for shaping the young minds of today.

Re: uncle Froyd is in need

[gknoy]

Given that minors can't give informed consent, and such things are normally signed by their parents, I believe the father in this case IS the authority on whether it's OK.

Re:Dunstan Baby

[ender-]

Or you can teach them basic sign language, which the baby is able to do well before they are capable of speech. It's great having a baby who rarely cries because they can make their needs known instead of just screaming until you manage to figure out the problem through trial and error.

reactionary much?

[escay]

why is this story tagged 'peeping tom'? if we're able to gain deeper insights into human cognitive abilities and language learning skills (which is a crucial part of developing strong AI), the price of privacy is cheap. the whole up-in-arms-about-privacy that people tend to get into is becoming more and more of a reactionary effect these days without them actually realizing the tradeoff and making a decision on a case-by-case basis.

sometimes, it is worth it.

better link

[juggledean]

Here's a 2009 BBC article with some description of the tech

Here is the better link

[juggledean]

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8127804.stm 2009 BBC link The input filter cut our the url and tthe html in the parent, sorry about that

Re:babys/LSI/w+dog; prepping since forever for thi

[Ruke]

Mod parent up. This is some timecube-quality insane rambling.

The Guy Needs To Get A Facebook Account

[pandrijeczko]

...because everyone I know with a baby or toddler spends their *WHOLE* time either updating their status about it or putting up *YET MORE* photos of it.

I don't wish harm to anyone or any kid on this planet but I just wish these people would GET A FUCKING LIFE outside their kids sometimes because it is FUCKING BORING!

Re:The Guy Needs To Get A Facebook Account

[Chuck Chunder]

I just wish these people would GET A FUCKING LIFE outside their kids sometimes

Perhaps you could offer to babysit?

Having a little person who is entirely dependant on you is extremely time consuming. Thoughtful people like yourself who are concerned about their "FUCKING BORING" lives could help out by giving them some free time.

Re:The Guy Needs To Get A Facebook Account

[pandrijeczko]

A piece of advice:

"If you can't cope with your own kids, then don't have them. Put something on the end of it."

There, that one's free.

Re:The Guy Needs To Get A Facebook Account

[Chuck Chunder]

I don't remember any discussion of not coping with their kids, can you explain why you think your advice is appropriate (or at least relevant)?

In any case, unless your advice comes with a free time machine it seems to be of little value.

Re:The Guy Needs To Get A Facebook Account

[Americano]

It doesn't sound like your friends have an issue, it sounds to me like they're enjoying it so much that they want to share the experience with their friends and family via Facebook.

From the sound of it, you're the one struggling to cope with the fact that people you know aren't focused on entertaining you first, last and always via their Facebook posts.

Re:The Guy Needs To Get A Facebook Account

[tibit]

Per your interpretation, "coping" must mean "getting rid of" -- a fucking life OUTSIDE, right? There's no amount of "coping" with a 3 month old that will enable you to leave him alone at home and go out for a date. Sure, he may sleep through the night at that age, but would you really want to place bets on that? Babies can get sick pretty quick, you can have a perfectly normal looking baby at 7pm, and a very sick one at 9pm, with vomit/diarrhea etc.

We'd certainly go out a whole lot of our kids could stay at home with a good nanny. Sorry, the rest of the family is ~4000 miles away, so they can't really help.

Re:Kids are radically different.

[Nadaka]

I didn't start reading until the first grade. Had teachers tell me I was retarded and that I would never catch up with the rest of the kids. At the time, my options for reading were baby books about jack walking up a hill with his dog, and she was a bitch.

By 3rd grade I was reading at a college level and was given a rule that I had to check out at least 1 fiction book from the library each time I went because my mother was worried that I was reading to many text books.

Re: uncle Froyd is in need

[bluefoxlucid]

Freud, I heard about that guy's book... it's about penises, isn't it?!

Re:Dunstan Baby

[Hogwash McFly]

Sounds like a money-making scam to me, but then again I don't have enhanced auditor perception and recall.

This is nothing new.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Back in the late '60s or early '70s I took a "Psychology of Language Acquisition" course for a humanities distribution requirement. One of the things we were told about was a researcher in the field who had sound-filmed most of her daughter's waking life for several years, to collect such data.

An interesting artifact from that was that the daughter had coined a three-syllable word-like thing that sounded like "ah-WIDdah". (I think it was during the two- or three-word utterance stage.) She seemed to use it like an ordinary word. But mommy, and the rest of the department, couldn't figure out what it meant or what purpose it served. Eventually she stopped using it. Some time after the experiment was over and the daughter was talking normally, they showed the films to the daughter. She couldn't figure it out, either. (The scientists figure it most likely was a placeholder for words that she hadn't learned yet. But that's hardly needed in the small-group utterances stages so it's still a mystery.)

So that's how they are made

[gmhowell]

So cam-whores are made, not born?

Re: uncle Froyd is in need

[chill]

How would you get informed consent out of an infant? And I don't see how this is any worse than mom and dad popping in the home movies of little junior taking his first bath -- and showing his prom date.

Re:sounds like the dog translator.

[The Yuckinator]

The Simpsons beat them to it

Instinctively?

[b4dc0d3r]

Maybe instinctively was a better choice, but then there's this:

The infant shapes the caregiversâ(TM) behavior, the better to learn.

Really, researcher, the infant is in charge of the situation?

I have the same problem with saying that guinea worm shapes sufferer's behavior. It might be convenient to get the host into the water, but this is more an evolutionary jackpot than any sort of control. It burns, people jump in the water, that works out for the parasite.

Humans tend to mimic other peoples' speech and body language. Mirroring, that's all this is, and it turns out to be beneficial for the infant according to this guy. Simple and obvious explanation. Humans mirror infants, just as they do adults, newsflash at 11.

Being a kid of a scientist

[Asaf.Zamir]

"Now now Billy, I got your this new teddy bear!
Just remember, talk to his red blinking eye"

MOD PARENT UP

[cyclomedia]

There's also an "X For Dummies" book too : http://www.amazon.com/Your-Babys-First-Year-Dummies/dp/0764584200

Danish impossible to understand even for Danish

[drop table user]

"Lately the Danish language has become impossible to understand even for the Danish themselves": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

Re:"tolerance" - no differences allowed !

[stewbacca]

Human rights exist regardless of the religious frameworks you are trying to associate with human rights.

Just like morality exists without religion, even though religious people can't understand that.

I've lived 41 years with a concerted effort to avoid religion, yet I have a pretty good framework for knowing what is right and wrong...all your talk about your religions and cultures be damned.