Tag: children
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The Wug Test and Language Development in Children
The Wug Test is a foundational study in how language develops in children. It’s also a bit cute: Developed by Jean Berko Gleason in the 1950s, it’s been said that the only thing with a greater impact on the field of child language research was the innovation of the tape recorder. Gleason’s major finding was…
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Mister Rogers’ Nine Rules for Talking to Children
Having not grown up in the US, I only became aware of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as an adult. However, this is entirely due to Fred Rogers himself: his kindness, his humanity, and his ability to draw children into his safe world. In the lead-up to the publishing of The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work…
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Infants Quickly Learn to Ignore Unreliable and Silly People
Children learn a lot from imitating the actions of adults, with recent research suggesting that infants as young as 14 months are selective imitators — taking cues from our behaviour in order to decide which of us adults to learn from and which to ignore. In a study where researchers expressed delight before either presenting an…
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Healthy Food Boosts School Results
In 2004 UK TV chef Jamie Oliver ran an experiment at a school in Greenwich, London for an upcoming show of his, Jamie’s School Dinners. By various means Oliver attempted to improve the eating habits of the school’s students and, by-and-large, succeeded. Tracking his progress–and that of the children–were two Oxford economists, Michele Belot and Jonathan James.…
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The Infant Brain, Redux
An interesting follow-up if you enjoyed reading about the development of the infant brain last week: Seed Magazine interviews Alison Gopnik, asking about her research and “why everything we think we know about babies is wrong“. Seed: You describe children as being “useless on purpose.” What do you mean by that? AG: It’s related to…
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Development of the Infant Brain
Looking primarily at the research of Alison Gopnik, Jonah Lehrer looks at the development of the infant brain. Gopnik argues that, in many respects, babies are more conscious than adults. She compares the experience of being a baby with that of watching a riveting movie, or being a tourist in a foreign city, where even…