Babies Can Learn Words as Early as 10 Months 152
linguizic writes "According to Scientific American Online: '10 month olds can learn to associate words with objects in their environment when given interesting enough stimuli.
A two-year-old can quickly link an object--whether a flashy rattle or a boring latch--to a word. Even a one-year-old can follow a parent's gaze to an object and match it with a word being spoken. But although anecdotal evidence seems to show that babies younger than one year can learn words, it remains unclear whether they are in fact mastering language. Now a new study reveals that 10-month-old infants can link words and objects, but only if the object is already interesting to them.'"
Mastery?? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Mastery?? (Score:2)
Both my kids started off quick, my son is the slower of the two and at 11 months he can say 6 words clearly enough that non close family members can understand what he said:
Mama, dada, baba, ihih (can't quite get the soft pallet to work enough to say sis sis), nana, and neigh neigh (the last being what he calls my wife's breasts, quite funny really).
-nB
Re:Mastery?? (Score:1)
Re:Mastery?? (Score:2)
If she's just eaten and you ask her if she's hungry, she doesn't say yes. If you offer her more food, she'll say "no" sometimes - not reliably - and shake her head and fend off the spoon, again not reliably.
I'd say she's mastered half of the binary number system, so she's on her way.
Re:Mastery?? (Score:2)
Re:Mastery?? (Score:2)
Us: Do you want...
her: I want...
She was also walking too. We though she'd walk before she crawled because she kept on standing up. My neice is very smart considering she is only 2.5 years old! You can carry on a conversation with her, and her attention span will stay with you...if she is interested. She's very interested in things around her. She deffinately u
Learning words (Score:2)
Moreover, young children like to repeat the things they hear, so even at this young age you should probably put 'em in another room next time you have to devirus a $#@)($*! computer in your office
So if you want your child to say DADDY first.. (Score:2)
Baby Signs (Score:2)
Re:Mastery?? (Score:2)
He's 18 months now and can reach most anything on the kitchen counters without standing on anything. I have a three-foot-tall toddler. Yikes.
Re:Mastery?? (Score:1)
Bingo, my baby has been able to sign 'milk' when she's hungry since she was 3 or 4 months old.
Re:Mastery?? (Score:1)
She does however have her own blog. [fearthepenguin.net] even though she's only 10 months old!
Geez they let anyone have one of those these days.
yeah, but can a baby... (Score:5, Funny)
From the Slashdot: .A two-year-old can quickly link an
object.... Yeah, but at what age can a baby levarage
development patterns? No baby is going to be much use until he
(she) knows the difference between a Singleton and a Factory.
Re:yeah, but can a baby... (Score:2, Funny)
Well, if you'd buy him the Fisher Price Object Oriented Compiler with the accompanied Sponge Bob Square Pants development frameworks, he would learn about that. It's all the rage in India. Geeze! You're such a bad parent!
I don't talk to my kid in baby talk (Score:2)
And I won't have him using that sissy baby "OO" stuff, either. He'll start where his old man did, on IBM/360 systems, writing assembler on punch-cards writing drivers for DASD systems.
And he'll like it if he knows what's good for him.
Re:yeah, but can a baby... (Score:2)
Baby Sign Language (Score:2, Interesting)
At least it's nice to have study that shows this.
The real study now is to develop an effective system for teaching babies communication.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:3, Insightful)
I use slow pronunciation and make it a point to strongly enunciate sounds so that my son picks up the right way to say something and can more easily communicate with people outside the family earlier. It seems to be working; since I started doing that he's had much greater success telling other people what he wants.
Re: (Score:2)
I have news for you (Score:2, Informative)
I've read your posts. You seem to have been convinced by a very good writer that he has the inside track on the truth.
However, to give you some perspective, Noam Chomsky disagrees with him. He's not the only one.
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/l anguagespeech/EvolLangFac_Cognition.pdf [harvard.edu]
Pinker did the same thing to you that he does to so many others. He convinced you with flowery porse that disg
Reductive. (Score:2)
Don't be ridiculous. Of course the teaching has an influence -- you've gone on to say that the child's learning is based on his exposure to the language in his environment, and obviously the teaching forms a part of that environment.
Unless, of course, you're thinking that parental influence magically won't count because of its insufficient academic rarification. "The naïve 'goo-goo' approach of the non-specialist (Foonly 78,
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:2, Insightful)
There are countless early education experts who advocate deconstructing words, and individually naming objects to young children, but you've read one book from one author and now you're strongly refuting people who say otherwise. Amazing.
There's no need for a grown woman like their mother to act silly for no
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:2)
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:2)
I do this with my son and always have. I speak to him as though he is an adult. I may not use big words with him, but I don't baby-talk him, either. I hate it when other people talk like that, especially when the purposefully mispronounce words that he has trouble saying correctly. Rather than reinforcing the correct way to say things, they continue to teach bad habits. His grandmother (my in-law) refuses to say "grandma" correctly -- it is "gammaw". What does this teach my son? answer -- to speak like a mo
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's modify this statement slightly. "Babies will learn language on their own, so it's best to give them as much exposure as possible -- in other words, to interact with them regularly."
Babies that (for whatever reason) are speech-delayed benefit greatly from being read to or talked to [nih.gov].
The real issue at hand... (Score:1)
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:5, Informative)
Don't listen to the buttheads who claim children can't communicate before 12-16 months. Oh yes they can. Many tantrums are a result of frustration because the kid can't verbalize what he wants to communicate. Signing is a whole lot more practical than speaking for someone with limited motor skills.
We've still maintaiined some signs, but not nearly to the level we used to have. It's a wonderful skill for communicating across distances - you don't need to shout across a large room to confirm that your kid is okay after tripping and falling. Also, I credit the early sign exposure for jump-starting my daughter's reading and writing abilities. She's five now, and can read books, can write her own stories (which look like something from Infocom,) and has an amazing vocabulary.
Re:Baby Sign Language (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. My son has spoken. (Score:1, Informative)
And now I'll probably get modded down as some k
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
Not Surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, at or about 10 months she could request several of her favorite foods, and was pretty disciplined about saying please and thank you! She could also identify a helicopter by its sound and give her variation on the sign for helicopter.
-Peter
Re:Not Surprising (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not Surprising (Score:2)
Re:Not Surprising (Score:4, Funny)
that's gotta hurt
Baby Sign (Score:2)
As I understand it, a lot of this is that the motor control required for basic sign is simpler than the finer motor control of vocalization and therefore the child can participate in language at a much earlier age. At one point Bab [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not Surprising (Score:2)
She could also identify a helicopter by its sound
Now that's a talent. Rather like Calleigh Duquesne's ability to recognize firearms by sound.Re:Not Surprising (Score:2)
Re:Not Surprising (Score:2)
Well, think of it this way-- your baby didn't NEED to say 'mommie' or 'daddy'-- the baby probably did something else that got your attention, and you picked him/her up-- this happens dozens of times a day.
Cheese, on the other hand, is a special request. How many cheese sticks can your kid eat in a day, really?
Re:Not Surprising (Score:2)
I think many parents miss this development in their child, which is a little sad. It's amazing to watch-- babies have incredible brains.
It's a little frustrating when researchers are a little slow to recognize this, or dismiss these observations simply as 'prideful parents'. Granted, many parents think their child is a superbaby, but I know parents (and researchers!) who were looking at this sort of stu
Re:Not Surprising (Score:2)
I'm curious about this ... are people doing this because of disabilities their babies have, or is this a new view of communicating with babies I've just never heard of. (The latter is highly likely, I neither have, nor want kids, so I don't know much about them.)
Have people just discovered infants are far more capable of communication than we've thought? I know they've proven other primates can commu
Re:Not Surprising (Score:1)
Yeah, it's pretty funny out of context. The point is that no one ever said that to her. She was able to express her emotional state using the sign she knew.
As usual, AC, your reading comprehension skills are lacking. She isn't mine. The point wasn't "look how smart my (friend's) kid is!" The point was that the summary seemed to imply that 10 months olds under
Talking dogs (Score:2, Funny)
I'd had no idea dogs could be trained to do that but since a) they had seven or eight of them and b) all the owners were teaching them to say the same thing ("Love you Mama"), it must be something people commonly know. Does everyone know this? A Google search mostly turns up page after page of links to v
Re:Talking dogs (Score:1)
Re:Talking dogs (Score:1)
Talking Dogs and talking cats
Re:Talking dogs (Score:1)
I'd say earlier than that (Score:1)
We think he also understands 'baba' or 'bottle', as you say that and he expects food......
Re:I'd say earlier than that (Score:2)
Compooder is her version of Computer. She says water like "Wha Ter", because my mom tried to teach her it isn't waher. Three is free, etc.
I assume it is caused from everybody
Re:I'd say earlier than that (Score:1)
yes... (Score:2)
Re:yes... (Score:2)
He's definately a smart kid, but I think what makes the most difference is that my wife stays home with him, and spends a lot of time reading to him, instead of sending him off to daycare every day. Now he's 3 and a half, and we can't shut him up.
Re:yes... (Score:2)
Mine is just the opposite. When my wife stayed home with him, he didn't talk much. When she went back to work and we put him in day care, he came home chattering the first day. Being around a group of kids slightly older than him every day has been very good for hi
Re:yes... (Score:2)
No is a particularly favorite word for kids around that age. Basically, realizing that they can say "no" is an important step in self-identity. They realize that while your parents may believe one thing, they can believe another. ^_^
Re:yes... (Score:2)
My son learnt to say "Truck" when he was about a year old. Unfortunately his T sounded more like an F.
Well before then he knew how to ask for yoghurt (go-go!) and later pineapple pizza (apple pie!)
No surprise there... (Score:5, Interesting)
But surely it's better to watch Barney, Sesame Street, and Blue's Clues until you're at least 14, so as to grow up to become a well-rounded American.
Re:No surprise there... (Score:2)
Re:No surprise there... (Score:2)
Yes, but is that more the fault of the parents of the prodigy or the parents of the typical child?
Re:No surprise there... (Score:5, Insightful)
His academic career flamed out early, mostly due to his inability to cope with other people (students, administrators, etc.) who didn't match his stellar IQ. In an age when theories like quantum mechanics and relativity were turning the world upside down, he contributed surprisingly little of substance to any field of intellectual endeavor. Instead he withdrew into himself, becoming neurotically obsessed with, of all things, streetcar transfers. While unquestionably intelligent, his tremendous gifts were mostly wasted.
When I was in university, I noticed that there were two types of students who did well: those who were very smart, and those who were not so bright, but worked very hard. While I often envied the first group, I always respected the second group more. When it comes to life outside the university, I'm willing to bet that, as a whole, the hard workers will end up doing better than the naturally gifted ones.
Troubles of Gifted People (Score:4, Interesting)
The naturally gifted people can have a harder time making the transition than the hard workers, but it's not unsurmountable. Mainly, I've noticed that the gifted often have trouble figuring out what they want to do. (When my brother took the ACTs, he scored 33-35 on every section and the area where it recommended areas of study translated those even results to "You have no particular talent in any area.") Often, they're the ones who spend years in an undeclared major, or switch frequently. Or, more sadly, they lock themselves in for four years of a degree, then realize it wasn't what they wanted.
The other big problem for gifted people is adjusting to difficulty. You can see this some with bright kids who go to college, realizing that they've gone from being the big fish in a small pond to being a midsize fish in an even bigger pond. And then, there are some who still breeze through college without effort. When they're confronted with a situation which requires them to buckle down, they may not find they have the skills for it whether it's holding down their job or maintaining a marriage.
My feeling is that what's important for bright kids, at any level, is to keep learning no matter how hard the teachers work to prevent it, and to never settle for just coasting by when you know you can do better.
Re:Troubles of Gifted People (Score:2)
Alright, you've identified my situation exactly. Now, what the hell do I do about it?!
Degree Lock-in (Score:2)
Honestly, I don't really know. I know some people who slogged their way through a few years of a job in their field so as to pay off college loan debt and raise enough capital to make another try at school. My brother took the route of moonlighting in a job that he does enjoy (bartending). I do wish you the best of luck though.
But... (Score:2)
What I really need, though, is a way to get my 4-year-old to *stop* using words. Like when I saw her playing with a toy at the dinner table.
Me: "Hey! What are you doing!?" Her: "I'm eating my damn dinner!"
Yeah, she learned that from me too.
Re:But... (Score:2)
3 month say it's name (Score:2)
Re:3 month say it's name (Score:1)
Number of parents surprised by this: 0 (Score:5, Insightful)
My son is 18 months. He's got a vocabulary somewhere around 50 words and strings together short sentences. "I got out" was the first sentence we heard him say, maybe two months ago.
At 10 months, he had actually named his two favorite toys (Gah and Meh) and would look up if you said "light". If you said "tractor" he would want to go outside, because that's where the tractor is at his grandfather's house. He wasn't talking then (he barely is now) but it was clear that he understood words.
This is news? (Score:1)
Of course, the "interestingness" qualification mentioned above was clearly in effect, as my first word was (I shit you not) "titty."
What can I say...some things in your life stick with you.
Sign language (Score:5, Interesting)
According to her (with about 15 years of experience under her belt as a doula, and "speaks" fluent sign language), babies can learn basic sign language before they can talk, and that teaching them sign language will enhance their mental capabilities (speak earlier, read earlier, higher IQ). She's listed off studies to back this, though I've never checked into them myself.
However, I don't doubt it. After all, we can teach monkeys to communicate via sign language. While certainly not dumb animals, they don't have the mental capabilities of humans (do monkeys have soap operas? There you go), so it shouldn't come as a surprise that we can teach humans sign language at an early age.
Re:Sign language (Score:2)
I would consider that a sign that monkeys are more intelligent than humans.
Re:Sign language (Score:2)
I guess that means monkeys are more intelligent than humans?
Re:Sign language (Score:1)
My two boys have watched Signing Time [signingtime.com], a series of Sign-Language videos for children, since they were six months old. They pick it up faster than you'd think, and the benefit is enormous. Having your eight month old crawl up to you and sign "Sleep" when they're ready for bed, or "Milk" when they're hungry is incredibly useful.
Re:Sign language (Score:2)
Re:Sign language (Score:2)
However, here sign language would be used in conjunction with words (most likely,) so the babies would pick up the sign language first and associate the words later; eventually, you'd switch over to speaking entirely, except when quiet is needed, and then you might switch to short sign language phrases.
Kind of like a person who walks crawls for a bit; you just crawl for a bit and you still walk just as well. I imagine if
Re:Sign language (Score:1)
No kidding (Score:3, Informative)
A complex sentance, loaded with stuff she'd have to figure out on her own, and she did just fine.
So, from the parents of the world, let me just say, "no shit".
Not surprising (Score:2)
I imagine that this report was done by a male scientist who spends all his day in the lab, meanwhile his wife is at home spending all day with the children.
He comes home at 7pm one evening: "Darling I've made a wonderful discovery! Babies can learn words as young as ten months! Isn't that wonderful!" His wife looks at him distainfully and says: "Your son said his first word at eight months."
As a father of two I don't find this surprising at all. In fact, if these scientists has just bother
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
You are right, though; reading TFA is bad form and could lead us all into terrible habits. If we start getting all hung up on details, anything could happen...
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
Is not the kids its the parents (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is not the kids its the parents (Score:2)
She's funny with certain things, too. She LOVES phones and remote controls. I tried to give her an old remote that we weren't using a
How old are they when they *stop* speaking words? (Score:2)
As far as the article, uh duh. Said four year old knew a number of words by 10 months- Mama, Dada, Adah (Adam, his name) My current toddler is slower, but he certainly knew Mama and Dada well before a year. At 14 months, his favorite word is Uh-oh. Not a favorite of ours, since he uses it appropriately.
Re:How old are they when they *stop* speaking word (Score:2)
10 months is too late (Score:2)
A boring latch?!?! (Score:2)
If hinges are that fascinating, imagine how incredible the infantile study of LATCHES must be!!
Re:A boring latch?!?! (Score:2)
Anyway, my parents thought I'd scream in protest about being blocked from the room but I was, instead, quiet and content. Warning: when kids are quiet, be afraid. The silence came to an end when the gate crashed down. I had be
They can link concepts too, duh (Score:2)
I mean, tell a 6 month old "no", even in a rising tone (non-negatively inflected, in english) and they get the concept. How hard is it to believe that they can tie concept-object? Seems logical to me.
Although I have to say I know a lot of adults that could use a refresher course.
Let me tell you about MY daughter... blah blah (Score:2)
10 months?! Try 5... (Score:1)
Again, no surprise to parents, but kids are much more capable than even the so-called
Even a PocketPC can link words and actions (Score:2)
My kid read at 10 months! (Score:2)
We could get some gullible people to think she was reading the book title to pick them out. Great party trick.
My kid talked early (Score:2)
Re:Sign language works too (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sign language works too (Score:2)