Transcript Adolescent Health

Infant Language / Benefit of Play
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
University of Delaware
How do babies learn to talk?
(And why do we care if our children play?)
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
University of Delaware
Why, in a conference on
Women and Children’s Health,
might we focus on language
development…
Four take- away messages –
So you can nap now!
Big Point #1
• Language is the core ability needed for
success in school
• Disruption: Negative correlation between middle ear
infections and school achievement (Teele et al., 1990)
• Social problems: Children with poor language skills more
likely to be isolated and ignored by peers (e.g., Rice, 1993;Lindsey &
Dockrell, 2000)
• Math: Language plays a distinct role in mathematical
achievement (e.g., Jordan et a., 2007; LeFevre et al., 2010).
• The more we understand about how it is acquired, the more
we can effectively intervene
Big Point #2
• Reading is parasitic on language
•
Goal of reading: Extraction of meaning from printed page –
otherwise it’s all just like decoding Greek with no meaning –
poor kids have problems with comprehension
Big Point #3
There is an SES disparity in
vocabulary – lower SES kids know fewer words
How early does it start?
Children’s gestures at 14 months predict to their
vocabulary at 54 mos! (Rowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2009)
Why?
Parents who use more gestures
have children who use more. When
gestures are honored, kids learn
names for things. Treat child as
communicative partner!!!
Big Point #4
Language and literacy contribute to health
outcomes!
“Low literacy may impair functioning in the
health care environment, affect patient-physician
communication dynamics, and inadvertently lead
to substandard medical care. It is associated with
poor understanding of written or spoken medical
advice, adverse health outcomes, and negative
effects on the health of the population.”
US Department of Health and Human Services,
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Why does early language matter?
After all, kids aren’t reading healthcare instructions!
“What children experience during the early years
sets a critical foundation for their entire life
course. This is because early childhood
development —including the physical,
social/emotional and language/cognitive
domains—strongly influences basic learning,
school success, economic participation, social
citizenry, and health.”
(World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, 2007)
So language really matters for many
sectors of our lives…
Some facts about language learning you might
want to know
• Children learn language early! Begins in the
womb.
• Infants bring a great deal with them for language
learning. They are brilliant at it!
• Responsive, sensitive ‘input’ is critical.
Today’s talk: In 5 parts
Language - An introduction to the
problem space
2. What we see when our children learn to
talk
3. What we don’t see!
4. Applications
5. Why play matters for language – and
everything else!
1.
Language can
start wars
ruin marriages
allow a presentation
Humans are the only species to
have language
• Allows us to share thoughts and feelings
• Transmit knowledge and culture
• Say what we want in our coffee
The “problem space”:
What is language?
Speaking: Mapping meanings in our
heads to sounds
Understanding others’ language:
Transforming speech sounds to meanings
Consider the task that faces the
language-learning child
They hear a sound stream
What do babies need to do?
Break the sound stream up into units:
segmentation
Figure out the meaning of the resulting
units: vocabulary
Figure out how words combine to make
sentences in your language: syntax
What you see…
original theories of language development
were based on production, or what the
child said that you could see
What you see: The doctor’s chart
0-3mo: coos, vegetative noises
3-6 mo: coos, laughs, gurgles
6-9 mo: babbling (e.g., bababa)
turn taking; pat-a-cake
9-12 mo: points; first words; Bam Bam
12-18 mo: 2 words per week; 50 words
18-24 mo: naming explosion; “Whas sat?;
Talk about here and now;
loves stories over and over;
follows simple commands
2-3 yrs: 500 words; asks questions;
past tense; Wh-; sits 20 minutes; WHY?;
pronounce clearly - m,n,f,b,d,h,y;
uses fuller sentences with “in,” and “on.”;
girls might appear to stutter
A wonderful example!
Meet Elio & Marina: Twins, 3
Adult: “Do you remember what it
looked like in Mommy Sasha's
belly?”
Elio: "It was pretty dark, but I got
a flashlight like Dora and looked
for Marina.”
What you don’t see…
Current theories are based on what you
can’t see with the naked eye….
The last 40 years: A revolution in our
understanding of how children solve
this age-old problem
Did you know …….
•At birth, babies recognize their mother’s
voice over a strange female’s?
•Recognize their own language over a foreign
language?
•Can remember stories and songs they heard
while in utero?
• Can discriminate between sounds, e.g., /b/ vs.
/d/, found in all the world’s languages?
Tackling one part of the puzzle of language
learning:
Learning words
How does the character of word learning change over
the first two years of life?
Fido versus Freddy
Fido learns words
associatively needing hundreds
of trials
Freddy learns words by
noting the social intent
of the speaker, i.e., what
does the speaker intend
to name? (Demo)
What did we find?
10
months:
Fido lives!
Child assumes that a label refers to an
interesting object – even when we
look at and label the boring
object.
12
months:
Fido fading!
Can learn name only for
interesting object; no longer
mismap.
.
18
months
Can learn name for
boring object but still
lured by perceptual
salience.
Freddy emerging!
Freddy lives!
24
months
Mature word learning.
Uses social cues to label
boring object; overrides
perceptual salience.
A demonstration from Pruden et al. (2006)
But this is just the tip of the
iceberg!
*6-month-olds can learn a new word if it follows their own
name rather than someone else’s name
*8-month-olds are computing transitional probabilities
between syllables to find words!
*10-month-olds can learn 2 new words in one session!
*17-month-olds, saying as few as 2 words, can watch the
correct event when offered 6-word sentences like “Big
Bird is tickling Cookie Monster!”
But you are rightfully
incredulous: How do we know
all of this about baby
competencies?
A host of new methodologies offers
researchers a window onto the baby’s mind!
The High Amplitude Sucking Paradigm
Perception of sounds
The Intermodal Preferential Looking
Paradigm
Vocabulary, syntax, concepts
Reconsider!
Babies are
at language learning.
Applications:
How can we use our hard won
knowledge base
to improve children’s lives?
We know the ingredients for
best outcomes for language…
• Children need interactive, responsive
environments
• Babies need to hear lots of language to calculate
their statistics over
• Babies need to hear language about what
fascinates them – and “baby talk” helps!
CHOICES Delaware
http://choices-delaware.org/
• We are determined to provide children with
hearing loss the kind of input they need for
language learning!
Children with cochlear implants need massive
language exposure!
Appropriate education for these children is not
available yet in our state!
What form do sensitive and
responsive environments take?
They are often playful!
Language comes through play –
with parents, caregivers, peers,
and in school
But the American Academy of Pediatrics
had to issue a “white paper” on play!
But why do our children need play – and
playful and engaged learning in school?
We are leaving the information age, where getting the facts
was enough….
We are entering a new era, a knowledge age in which
integrating information and innovation is key. (see Drucker)
The 3 R’s? Insufficient for our future economic success!
We need content, collaboration, communication, critical
thinking, creative innovation, and confidence.
The 6 C’s
The managerial and creative
skills that start here…
Yet we have been wearing out our
children by
•Engaging in “drill-and-kill” activities rather than
playful and meaningful learning, even at the youngest
ages!
To remedy the fact that play has become
a 4-letter word
We wanted to share the science of learning with the
public and start a movement to restore play and
playful learning to their rightful place in our
democracy
On October 3, 2010, we put the science of
play in the hands of the people at Central
Park in New York City!
the arts and sciences of play
25 activities
helped us realize
our goal
Each activity was based in
a nugget of science!
Examples include:
Simon Says links to self control
Block play links to spatial learning
But did it work? Did families come out?
More than 50,000 people!!!!
To play with cardboard boxes, sing and dance, construction toys,
and play bilingual bingo!
And this is just the beginning!
• LEARN -- web portal
• Publishing arm
• Talking with Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore and
other cities!
When (in a recent IBM survey) 1500 CEO’s tell us that,
“…a world of increasing complexity [needs] a new
generation of leaders that make creativity the path forward
for successful enterprises”
we know that America’s children need more play and
playful learning!