You don't even know you learned a lot!

The baby looks like a group of little helpless.They are tiny!But scientists have proved that the baby has a magical ability to learn.in生命的最初几年, 我们学习了很多惊人的信息, 通常甚至不知道我们在学习。语言就是一个很好的例子。你小时候学过什么语言？你有没有想过你是如何学会所有零碎的语言的？作为一个新生儿, 你对声音和词汇几乎一无所知, 但当你长大后, 你可能会知道多达 5 万或 10 万个词。你可以做一些很酷的事情。例如, 你可以在这里填入缺少的词语: 该睡觉了, 你要刷____。

How do you do that?Can you explain this to a friend or adult you are how to fill in the blanks?If you think you will feel weird.You have predicted the words' ' ' 'teeth.Do you predict the future.

It's hard to know how children learn language complex things like this.Will they copy their parents'?They will keep until say the right word?Whether they can find rules, and learn what syllable often appear together?Whether or not they realize different words with different things, and use this to find out the meaning of the word?They will guess what would happen next word, and then learn from your mistakes?And their mother, father, brothers and sisters have fun, it can help them to learn a language?Scientists for their way of learning have different point of view.Although opinions differ, but they generally believe that, with the passage of time, the study is to accumulate.After the first few years of life to our ability to learn and get good grades in school is very important.Exciting is that language learning is still a big mystery, scientists in the coming decades (or even hundreds of years) will have a lot of work to do!One of the biggest challenges is how to use the scientific method to study the baby and language.

How do scientists study study ' ' ' '?

How babies learn is difficult, because they can't tell us what they are thinking.So how do we know what babies know, or they will be able to learn what?Scientists there are many ways to study and language study, and the method used in every field, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, pedagogy, medicine, communication, public health, and so on.If you don't know the meaning of these words, please send an email to us:caseylw@princeton.eduoradriana.weisleder@gmail.com).We will explain next scientists to study the two specific methods of the baby, I hope you feel interesting.

First, the scientists used a method called eye tracking.Since we are born, our eyes can move.We are interested in something will look at that thing.Scientists can use to understand the children know what eye movements.For instance, we sometimes give children watch a television screen has two pictures, such as a ball and a cup.Then, the children hear a sentence like this: did you see the ball?By using an advanced camera, we can see the children's eyes move to how fast the speed of the ball.The scientists found that the children eyes moved to the correct pictures on faster and faster.Sometimes, the child just by listening to the beginning of the words will know which picture to see.We made a short video to help you better understand:https://youtu.be/CuLMn8uQxss.

Then, scientists let parents tell us to know what their children.For example, we have hundreds of words can sometimes give parents a list, they will beside the children know that the word box.What do you think of your parents can do a good job?May or may not be able to.Parents said it is difficult to remember that children.So, the scientists also need to ask the children themselves.One way is to let the children hear different word pointed to the picture.We asked some children they may have heard many times of simple words, and some of the less common difficult word.

We use these measurement method to do the two types of research.Basic scienceTell us about the basic knowledge of how children learn.We try to understand what children can do and cannot do, we use the results to form the human learning theory.Applied scienceIs different, but also related.Through the application of science, we try to understand how we can help those students poor children, or those in the process of growth can't have the same opportunities as children and other children.

Different family

Through these methods, we know what the kids know.But to fully understand how children learn language, we also need to know about their family and community, especially when they hear the language.The children could hear the language is more or less at home?Parents will say tens of thousands of different words, or only a few dozen?Adults are words describe and explain to the children, let the children of his own ideas word mean?To answer these questions, the scientists recorded the interaction between parents and children.Then they spend hours analysis what they said.

In an important study, the researchers went to the child's home once a month, record the children hear and said in 1 hour (the researchers name is Betty ⋅ ⋅ hart and Todd risley [1], in 1995 they published a book about their study).They are baby 9 months of age began to do so, they are going to their home, every month until the child 3 years old.During this time, the children began to speak, scientists are marked in the chart the children say every new word.Figure 1Shows how the children's vocabulary growth over time.They also write down all the words and sentences of the parents to the child said.in分析了这些录音后, 他们发现大多数孩子在一岁左右就开始说话了, 但有些孩子比其他孩子更快地学会了新词汇。他们还发现, 如果父母经常在家和孩子们聊天, 孩子们学习新词汇的能力会更好。听了很多语言的孩子——更多的不同的词汇, 更多的问题, 更多鼓励的词语, 以及更多的描述事物的词汇——比没听那么多语言的孩子词汇量更大。

The study is one of the most important finding is that children from wealthy households can hear more languages.Poor children in the home to hear so many languages.Have you ever thought of this question?You may know that some families more money than other families, this affects the child's life, what food they eat, they have many toys and books.But this study shows that family economic conditions can also affect children's experience.Remember, these are just average, there are always many exceptions!Some rich kids at home can't hear a lot of language, and some poor children can hear a lot of language at home.The focus is on: from when they are babies, some children get a lot of opportunities to play and learn, and some children have less chance.The study of the brain scientists know that the children experience every day how things will affect their brain development (you can read Uban and others in the Frontiers for Young Minds to write another article [2]).So, if we want to give every child to learn important things like language fair opportunity, then we must from child birth give them the same opportunity.

Scientists want to help, but first they want to know what kind of experience can help children learn.In one study, scientists are trying to calculate how much the children every day at home to hear words [3].All the children in the study came from a poor family, scientists use a child in a pocket of small tape recorder recorded their lives for the day.Then the computer software automatically tell them how many words the children heard.Isn't it interesting?They found that some of the children could hear the 20000 words a day, and some children can hear 2500 words a day,Figure 2).Some children hear a lot said to them, such as when they talk and play with their parents, the scientists call it "'Children oriented language"'.Other children hear many languages are not directly said to them, such as their parents talk to each other or when you are talking with their brothers and sisters, scientists call this' 'Overheard word"'.The results found that children who hear many of them said, than children who hear a lot of people talk more vocabulary.But children who often hear others speak vocabulary is not large.Isn't this amazing?It shows that only listen to others speak or listen to TV for children to learn a language is not enough.Talking with children - describe what they were watching, to respond to what they have to say, for children to imitate the sound of their voices - adults learning a language is very important.

There are many reasons to explain why some children hear more languages than others.Some children have no brothers and sisters, and some children have a lot of brothers and sisters.Some parents of the children have a lot of time to play with them, and some parents don't have much time with them.Some children live with their parents, and some other adults live together, or live in dormitories.The children's lives there are a lot of difference, but we still don't fully understand how the different effects they heard of the language.We do know is that playing and talking to the children to learn a language is very important.Able to play more, speak more children more conducive to better learning in school in the future.

Give each child a fair opportunity to learn

Why is it important to have all this?inFigure 3Shows us a perspective: learning cycle.The cycle will continue with your growth.Over the years, you have always been part of the cycle.When the children had a good start in the language, they can learn more from parents and teachers.As we discussed in this article, some children have many opportunities to play, chat and learning, while others did not.

Here are some good news.There are a lot of people want to give every child a fair opportunity to learn: parents, teachers, doctors, librarians, social workers, such as speech therapist and scientists.They can provide a lot of help.in家庭、教室、医院、大学、教堂和其他社区中心, 人们致力于帮助儿童学习。

Scientists are working hard at how we can best help children grow up to be happy, healthy, and got ready for school.We do basic science is in order to understand how children learn, applied science is in order to understand how children thrive.Where do you live near the university?What's the name of it?Scientists may be there to study education and learning.Maybe one day you can work in the lab, help us to understand how children grow and learn.

Remember: every child, every family is different also.You can growth way and the growth of your friends in a different way.Your apartments and houses may look different, but more importantly, you do things at home are not the same.These differences is related to how we learn, how to grow and to become what kind of person.It seems very easy, but to play with children to help them learn the language is really important.Whether at home or at school, playing and talking can help children learn more.in短短 5 年左右的时间里, 你可能会在夏令营照顾更小的孩子们。希望你能记住在这篇文章中读到的东西。

You now side have parents, teachers or friends?To ask a question, a chat, or play a game, see whether you learned some interesting things.

The vocabulary

Basic Science (Basic Science):writeThe study of how something works.

Applied Science (Applied Science):writeUsing basic science to find solutions to problems of research.

Children oriented language (Child - Directed researched):writeAdults and older children and children talk to use the language.

Overheard words (Overheard researched):writeAdults and older children, not children, talk to each other when the language used.

Conflict of interest statement

The author statement, the study is in no may be interpreted as potential conflicts of interest under the condition of commercial or financial relationships.

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reference

[1]writeHart, B., and Risley, t. r. 1995.Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

[2]writeUban, k., Herting, m., and Sowell, e. r. 2016. Can money buy you a better brain?What do you think?Front. Young Minds4:13. Doi:10.3389 / frym. 2016.00013

[3]writeWeisleder, a., and Fernald, a. 2013. Talking to the children matters: early language experience strengthens processing and builds vocabulary.Psychol. Sci.24 (11) : 2143-52. The doi: 10.1177/0956797613488145