Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain
By: Alisher Abdulkhaev
Tags: Brain, Words, Neuroscience, Baby

(Note: some part of this post is direct copy-paste from the original book.)

Connections:

Dr. Dana Suskund (author of the book): is a Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UChicago Medicine) and a pediatric cochlear implant surgeon. Suskind specializes in early childhood development, and has conducted research on parents and caregivers’ capacities to drive foundational brain development for children ages birth to three, particularly those born into poverty.

The Susans (Professor Susan Levine and Professor Susan Goldin-Meadow): are University of Chicago professors of psychology. They have been working together, around 40 years, to understand how children learn language.

Betty Hart and Todd Risley: are child psychologists who wanted to figure out how to enhance academic success of children from low-income families. They showed us the importance of language environment at an early age of children: the quantity and the quality of the words heard by a child, beginning from the birth till 3 years old, can express the disparities in ultimate educational achievement.

Anne Fernald: is an American psychologist. She serves as the Josephine Knotts Knowles Professor in Human Biology at Stanford University and has been described as “the leading researcher in infant-directed speech”.

Carol Dweck: is a psychology Professor at Stanford and the author of the book: “Mindset: The Psychology of Success”.

Neuroplasticity: the ability for the brain to develop with new stimuli.

LENA — Language Environment Analysis System: small digital audio recorder that fits snugly into the pocket of a child’s T-shirt. Recorded audio can be processed make an analysis.

Photo by Alyssa Stevenson on Unsplash

By the end of age three, the human brain (which has 100 Billion neuron) completes about 85% of its physical growth. This, at the same time, represents the same time period of thinking and learning development. Scientific researches show us the development of the brain is related to the language environment of the young child.

Neuroplasticity for learning language may occur, to some extend, at all ages. However, it is integral to the child’s brain from birth through 3–4 years of age.

“A rich language environment is like a oxygen. You would not get its importance until you see someone who could not gain enough that oxygen.” — Nim Tottenham.

1. The First Word: The pioneers of parent talk

Hart and Risley developed a novel preschool program aimed to enhance the academic potential of children by intensify their vocabulary. But it failed, i.e. increasing the vocabulary of preschool children did not help them to learn better than the children who didn’t go to the preschool. This was unexpected results, because Hart and Risley were almost sure that increasing the vocabulary would help children’s academic potential. They were seeking for the answer; “why it failed?”…

The following video, from 1960s, is about their project — Juniper Gardens Children’s Project:

To understand the reason of their project’s failure, they kept doing a research. 42 families from different socioeconomic strata (SES) participated their research: 13 from high-SES, 10 from mid-SES and 13 from low-SES and 6 welfare families. Children of these families followed from 9 months to 3 years age. After three years of detailed observation and an additional three years of data analysis, Hart and Risley were ready to formulate the analysis results.

In an hour, the high-SES families were responding to their children 250 times in an hour; the low-SES families were responding to their children 50 times in an hour. Here is the table showing the average number of words heard by children from different SES:

Although, there were academic potential differences between different SES family children, that was not the actual reason. The essential factor was how much and how their parents talked to them. Children, whose parents were talking a lot, no matter the educational or economic status, were more successful.

Words, how many words we heard and how they pronounced, are determining factors in brain development.

Imperatives and prohibitions are yet another factors which affect the child’s ability to acquire language.

There are three different characteristics of interactions, regardless of SES, between a child and parent: 1. symbol-infused joint attention (both mother and child use meaningful words and gestures as they share an activity), 2. communication fluency and connectedness (the flow of interaction that connects a mother and child), 3. routines and rituals (for example, “my turn, now your turn” play or structured daily events such as meals and bedtime).

(both mother and child use meaningful words and gestures as they share an activity), (the flow of interaction that connects a mother and child), (for example, “my turn, now your turn” play or structured daily events such as meals and bedtime). There is another very important factor; affirmations (“you’re good, you’re right!”) and prohibitions (“you’re bad, you’re wrong!”):

2. Neuroplasticity: riding the revolutionary wave in brain science

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind. — Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

Anne Fernald’s research underlines the importance of early language environment on the speed of language processing.

The brain, unlike almost all other organs, is unfinished at birth. During the several years (relatively small amount of time) after the birth, the brain circuit (which is very powerful and sensitive) is generated which will affect lifetime attainment.

In addition to the food needed for our physical growth, there is an equivalent need for optimum social nutrition to ensure intellectual growth. And one of the most important of this social nutrition is the continuity/stability.

When the levels of stress are consistent, “stress hormones” bathe a baby’s brain, forever changing its structure. Baby’s relationship with caring and responsive adult is at the center of brain development.

Each of us is born with the potential of 100 Billion neurons. However, without critical neural connections, these 100 Billion neurons are kind of meaningless.

From birth through about 3 years of age, in baby’s brain, 700-to-1000 additional neural connections are created in every second.

Baby needs something to look at to be able to learn “seeing”.

Brain development is realized in a hierarchical manner; “basic” abilities provide the foundation on which the more “complex” ones are built.

Do not undervalue the importance of “baby talk” to your baby. Contrary to what is known, “baby talk” actually helps the baby statistician’s brain to more easily grasp sounds that are clearly distinct from others.

3. The power of parent talk: from language to an outlook on life.

Parent talk is the an incredible power which helps the brain to reach its optimum intelligence and stability.

The connectome: is a comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain.

Babies come into this world with innate, non-verbal “number sense” and ability to “guesstimate” the relative number of things. When we play “tuu tuu tuu tuu” game with newborn babies, they would look longer at the picture with 4 squares. Likewise, if we play 12 syllables game, then they tend to look at the picture with 12 squares longer.

Yet another important think in parent-child interaction is, in addition to the quality and the quantity of words, to use the number of maths related words. Obviously, the baby who have heard more math-related words would be better at matching the spoken numbers with the quantity of dots in the paper.

Parents’ “spatial talk” (a talk related to spatial ability) — size and shapes of objects, i.e. circle, square, bigger, smaller, closer, tall, short, etc — affect’s child’s understanding of the spatial relationships between objects.

According to Carol Dweck, instead of instilling a sense of the absolutes in abilities, parents must engender the sense that effort is the pivotal factor in achievement. The primer reason of lack of success is the giving up, not a lack of ability.

If praise is not handled properly, it can become a negative force which makes the children passive and dependent on others opinion rather than strengthening them. Instead of just praise, it is better to teach the children being gritty — “If I try further, I will get better” — so that they will become less vulnerable to failures and become more determined.

“fixed” versus “growth” mindset: “fixed” mindset believes that skills are absolute and can not be changes, whereas, “growth” mindset believes in intelligence can be enhanced by challenges.

Research studies showed that praise for “effort” (process-based praise) had larger effect on children’s “growth mindset” compared to praise for “smartness” (person-based praise).

Bilingual children have an advantage over children speaking the single language because knowing two languages help to rearrange their mind properly. Very important point here is the child should learn the language from native speakers only!

4. The three T’s: setting the stage for optimum brain development.

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein

Babies aren’t born smart; they’re made smart by parents talking to them. Child’s intelligence is not set at birth but is very dependent, for optimum development, on the language they have provided.

Prepare an environment in order to optimize the benefits for the children. Core strategy for this is Three Ts: Tune In, Talk More, and Take Turns.

The First T: Tune In

Notice what a baby or child is focused on, then, talking with the child about it. If parent is not Tuned In, the other Ts will not work.

Parents better to learn to be aware of what their child is doing, then to become part of it, enhancing the relationship, helping to improve the skills being used in play and, through the ensuing verbal interaction, helping develop their child’s brain.

Digital distractions (computers, tablets, and smart phones) are addictive and attention absorbing and “Tuning In” is deterred by them.

Child-directed speech (baby talk): helps a baby’s brain learn the language. A key feature of child-directed speech is repetition.

helps a baby’s brain learn the language. A key feature of child-directed speech is repetition. Parental responsiveness, the essense of Yuning In, boils down to a three-step process: observation, interpretation, and action.

The second T: Talk More

Talk More, which goes hand in hand with Tune In, refers to a parent’s increased talking with a child, especially about what the child is focusing on, not to him or her. Talking More with a child requires a mutual level of engagement between the child and the parent.

Narration: narrating what you are doing, while you are doing it, helps baby’s brain to develop better: increases the vocabulary, shows relationship between a sound/word, and the act or thing it pertains to.

narrating what you are doing, while you are doing it, helps baby’s brain to develop better: increases the vocabulary, shows relationship between a sound/word, and the act or thing it pertains to. Parallel Talk: is a commentary on what the child is doing. Establishing eye contact, talking about the things in the immediate environment and allowing the child to absorb both language and warmth could be one of the best parallel talk.

is a commentary on what the child is doing. Establishing eye contact, talking about the things in the immediate environment and allowing the child to absorb both language and warmth could be one of the best parallel talk. Take “It” Away: labels (“house”, “car”, “road”, “pizza”, etc) are very important for both vocabulary building and understanding for the yougng child. For example, instead of saying “I love it!”, you could say “I love your drawing!”. Every label is another word, understanding.

The third T: Take Turns