Children As Learners

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Children As Learners
Archived Information

• Victoria J. Molfese
• University of Louisville

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Babies are really smart!

• Newborns identify their mothers by smell
• Newborns identify their mothers voices
• Newborns identify familiar faces
• Newborns prefer human faces and voices to most
  other stimuli

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How Did They Get So Smart?

• The brain is specialized for language acquisition
  at birth
• Lenneberg thought the brain was undifferentiated
  at birth and needed experience to become
  specialized for language
• Not True!

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Through the Miracle of Modern Technology

• Newborn infants have been found to respond to
  speech sounds differently than to nonspeech
  sounds
• There are differences in how each hemisphere of
  the newborns brain responds to sounds

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How Can We Tell?

• Event Related Brain Potentials
• Measure how the brain responds to sounds
• Indicate responsiveness to sounds even in
  newborns whose behaviors are difficult to assess
• Can be used all ages (newborns through adulthood)

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Discrimination of Speech Sounds

• Newborns can discriminant differences in place of
  articulation
• Ba versus Ga
• Initial consonants were more important than the
  following vowel
• Bag versus Gag

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Discrimination of Speech Sounds

• Discrimination of voicing contrasts
• Pa versus Ba
• Most newborns can discriminate and nearly all 2
  month olds can
• Pat versus Bat

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Why Do We Care?

• American English speakers possess perceptual
  boundaries that allow them to normally
  discriminate certain consonants (/b, d, g/) from
  other consonants (/p, t, k)
• These perceptual boundaries help us identify
  difference between words

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Early Speech Perception

• Newborn and early infant responses to speech
  sounds can be used to predict future language
  skills
• Auditory Evoked Responses at birth are different
  in children who have high scores on language
  assessments at 3 years of age compared to those
  with low scores

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Brain Wave Evidence
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So - Now What?

• How does the brain respond to language learning?
• How quickly does the brain response reflect word
  learning?
• What is reflected in the brain response?

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Rachel, Wheres the Gibu?

• Dennis Molfese (1987) study of 14 month old
  infants.
• Infants were given experience associating a
  yellow wooden stick (called a bidu) and a blue
  wooden cylinder (called a gibu) with nonsense
  words
• Twice each day for 7 days, moms and infants
  played with the objects and the moms labeled the
  objects

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Rachel, Wheres the Gibu?

• One week later infants returned and both
  behavioral and brain responses were measured.
• The object was shown while the infants heard
  either gibu or bidu
• Sometimes the object and sound matched and
  sometimes they were mismatched

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Brain Responses

• There were differences in brain responses to
  correct pairings of objects and nonsense words
  compared to incorrect pairings.
• Major changes were reflected in the brain waves
  after only one week

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Speech Perception, Language and Reading

• Research shows that speech perception skills at
  birth are related to later preschool language
  skills
• Research shows that early language skills are
  related to later reading skills

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Speech Perception, Language and Reading

• Our research shows that speech perception is
  related to reading skills at 8 years of age
• Newborn brain waves reflect differences in
  reading skills when the children at 8 years old

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Speech Perception and Reading

• Our longitudinal research with children studied
  from birth through age 8
• Children were groups according to reading scores
• Poor Readers (WRAT lt90, consistent with IQ)
• Dyslexic Readers (WRAT lt90, inconsistent with IQ)
• Normal Readers (WRAT gt90, consistent with IQ)

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Is It Really All Determined At Birth?

• If so much is present at birth and early in
  infancy, why go to school?
• Worrisome statements 90 of brain development
  occurs by age 3 years

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The Environment Plays A Role

• In our studies of language skills and reading
  skills, brain responses to speech sounds
  contribute to predictions of scores, but the
  environment (SES and parenting skills and family
  activities) also contribute to the prediction of
  scores.

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What Do We Know?Children As Learners

• Children come with certain sensitivities and
  capabilities due to biological factors
• Initial abilities later are influenced by
  maturation and by experiences in the environment
• Together these influences combine into a
  transactional system

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What Do We Know?Children As Learners

• Children influence the environment in which they
  live and are in turn influenced by the
  environment.
• The learning environment must support the childs
  learning and be cognizant of the childs role in
  the learning process