FreshFromTheLab: babies know their grammar.

Translated by Monica Riggio

#freshfromthelab: this time the latest news about development science comes from the Babylab of the Development Psychology and Sociality Department of Padova University, where the son of one of our Certified Trainers has taken part in the research of Professor Judit Gervain and her team.

Researchers Anna Martinez, PhD and Francesca Cavicchiolo welcomed Filippo and his family. After explaining the study, researchers encouraged Filippo and his mum to play together while listening to a particular audio related to the study: this was a made-up language made of imagined words and artificial but precise grammar rules. Later researchers put on Filippo a soft helmet with sensors while he was listening to the same audio, this time while he was watching a funny video.

But what were they looking for? Here we tell you more about this study, which was kindly shared by Professor Gervain.

Where does Grammar knowledge come from? If we think about school manuals, it seems incredible that a newborn already knows some grammatical rules and that he even started recognising and learning them when he was in his mum’s tummy.

Still, the study conducted by Professor Gervain and her team in the Padova Babylab tells us that a baby can learn grammatical rules when still inside the womb. It’s easy to imagine how complex it can be studying the experience of a child in the womb, however, looking at newborns in their very first days of life, we can discover that they have already gained experiences, they have already learned “something” while living in the uterus. During this period and up until the first year of life a wonderful process happens: it’s called native language tuning, which is the discovery of those sounds the language is made of: words, structure and grammar of the language (or languages!) spoken by the baby’s mum (we will have to wait until the first birthday in order to learn proper words, but everything begins here).

In the last fifty years scientists have studied (and are still studying) how this happens and we still have a long way to go in understanding the matter to the core, but we are certain about some things. Today, we know that a baby only 1-2 days old can recognise some very simple rules, which look like a language’s grammar. Basic skills – far from learning the use conditional at school – but a newborn can recognise and learn repetition, or reduplication: that’s why in many languages, almost in an universal way, the first words spoken by children have two identical syllables: for example da-da, ma-ma.

Therefore, since the beginning, our children are able to recognise shapes, rules and structures used in a real language.

What do scientists do to understand how children learn? In these past fifty years, Development Psychology researchers have been using several methods, especially when a child couldn’t answer verbally: observing his behaviour for instance, where he directs his glance, which pictures or objects his attention pauses on or using a “magic dummy”, connected to a computer recording the suction’s intensity and frequency – which increase when the baby is interested in something. In the past twenty years, researchers have started to use neuroimaging techniques: safe methods, not invasive and well tolerated which, thanks to a small helmet, let scientists see which brain areas activate when the baby listens to sentences in his native language or in a foreign language. Even when he sleeps!

Thanks to these techniques, Professor Gervain’s research team, which works with under one years old, has discovered that already in his prenatal life, a baby learns his native language’s prosody, which is the musicality, the tuning, the melody and the rhythm of the language spoken by his mum: at birth, indeed, the baby’s brain respond in a different way to the prosody of his native language rather than to the one of an unknown language. A newborn can recognise the rules of repetition connected not only to music and visual stimuli, but also those linked specifically to the language elaboration. This skill is universal at the beginning, children are really “citizens of the world” (link TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies/transcript?source=google_plusone&language=it).

But regarding language acquisition, learning also means “forgetting”. In order to specialise in our native language and tune to it, there is a price to pay: around the end of the first year, children lose their astonishing ability to learn every sound and every rule of any language in the world (even if a certain plasticity remains until preadolescence). Sure, we know very well that we can learn a foreign language at any age, but if we learn it when adults we don’t reach the same results that we would if we were exposed to that same language in the early years. Keeping this ability would require an extraordinary effort and won’t let us be real experts of our native language, which is something biologically more useful in order to live in our specific social context.

These studies have led scientists to an unbelievable discovery: even if babies cannot elaborate words yet, their brain area connected to language is not only extremely plastic, but also very mature, almost just like adults.

And precisely adults play an essential role in a child's language development, even if in an unconscious way. On one hand, when our children start talking, we tend to repeat some specific words, on the other hand, as we said before, we tend to unconsciously choose two-syllable words. This happens according to one of those circles of natural perfection which assures us not only surviving, but thriving and involves two aspects:

1. The first one, linked to our species evolution which ensured that an adult’s brain would become sensitive to a baby’s signals: a baby is extremely dependent on adults, unlike other species where cubs are almost completely independent, and the human brain develops very slowly, in an almost 20-22 years long process. So the parent’s support is essential for the baby’s survival: we biologically developed the unbelievable ability to decode and interpret the signals of this young creature who depends on us and can’t verbally communicate.

1. The second one involves the child: today scientists have discovered that during interactions the baby has an active role, since he stimulates and responds to the adult so that he can obtain the reactions and responses needed. We said earlier that a 6-9 month old baby can communicate through vocalisation and lallation and his parent instinctively responds by repeating the child’s syllables, maybe changing the tuning, adding something. The parent then observes whether the child has a reaction and, if this behaviour is functional to the child’s learning, he repeats it. Like a sort of repeated interactions feedback-loop where both parts provide unconsciously information supporting the baby’s development. Just like scientists do in their labs.

If this wasn’t enough, it’s even more astonishing that the whole social environment around the baby tends to promote his language development: not only his parents but everyone involved in the baby’s care (siblings, grandparents, extended family) can decode his signals and, on his part, the baby elicits the response needed. This happens through the eye gaze, though play and talking.

We are all adults “stimulated in the relationship” and biologically pushed to nurture children’s language development. Even when we don’t realise it, our brain knows how to best support the little humans around us… let’s allow ourselves some time to enjoy this wonderful role we have even when we don’t think about it.

How the research works in Padova University BabyLab

In Padova University BabyLab several professors and researchers study different aspects of development in the Early Years (0-5): language development, but also social skills, face recognition, affective touch, the link between movement and cognitive development and the development of mathematical skills.

From the families’ perspective these are short studies (usually lasting 5-10 minutes), enjoyable for the children, easy and playful. Data is collected through different techniques: observing the eye gaze, manipulating objects and neuroimaging. “We book an appointment according to the family’s availability – says Professor Gervain – we explain the study and answer questions and curiosities. At the end the child is given a little scientist “certificate” and the family is given pictures if they wish. After a couple of months, we try to give group feedback (we don’t provide assessments on single children), sending the first results of the research to the parents”.

Professor Judit Gervain

Professor at the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology at Padova University, and senior research scientist (directeur de recherche) at the Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center (CNRS & Université Paris Descartes)

Specialising in Linguistics, Judit Gervain studies language development from a biological point of view, especially “where does language come from”: we are indeed the only animals using a complex language and this is very interesting from an evolutionary perspective. In particular, Professor Gervain is working on understanding what happens inside a baby’s mind before s/he starts talking, examining how language develops. Starting from the child, from the very early stages, allows to reduce experience contribution – very dominant in adults – and to include both biological factors and the experience role in the development of skills concerning language.

Our network of Certified Trainers is a precious resource. We like to thank Giulia Terranova, Certified Trainer Il Parto Positivo and BabyBrains, for sharing her experience at the BabyLab and writing this text for our readers.

Reading is Language Learning!

Hello, I’m Maheen! You might remember be from a BabyBrains blog post (What a High-Tech Mum-to-Be Can Do for Autism) on me and my work published a few years a go. How time flies! Now I am Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Birkbeck Babylab and I’m currently involved in developing new technology to measure brain activity in babies so we can understand how babies’ brains grow.

I completed my Ph.D. a little over 2 years ago and just one short month after passing my Ph.D. viva, I welcomed my very own baby girl into the world! I’ve always been fascinated by babies, but even more so after becoming a mum - how they learn and grow and how we, as parents, hold the potential to literally build their brains and shape their identity. After becoming a mum, I became very aware that social media is full with parenting strategies and advice that have no scientific evidence to back them up and that often, the science behind building happy, healthy little minds is locked behind complex scientific papers and long books that nobody has the time to read. This inspired me to empower parents with my knowledge of babies and their brains and share how they can use this knowledge to nurture their little ones. So, I set up an Instagram Blog called Happy Little Minds where I do just that!

We’ve been discussing all things reading over on Happy Little Minds and how important it is to read to your little one to build a bond with them and for their brain development. Before I dive into the science, I just want to emphasize that reading is a key language skill (other key skills include listening, speaking and writing) and so developing the ability to read is part of wider language development.

You might have been encouraged by a medical professional in some capacity – a paediatrician, a health visitor – to read to your baby. It does seem to be a strange suggestion to read to a baby who has barely just entered this world. While babies can’t understand much, their brains are growing rapidly. It has been estimated that in the first few years of life, there are as many as 1 million brain connections forming every single second! Specific brain connections form for a specific task and the more you perform that task, the more those connections are reinforced and the stronger they become. There are many different areas of the brain that are involved in reading and research actually shows regular reading with young children strengthens these specific brain connections - which in turn helps build life-long critical skills such as attention, memory, problem-solving, language, imaginative skills, communication and critical thinking. These key skills then help acquire further reading and language skills.

From birth (some research even suggests during pregnancy), babies start learning important skills that set the foundation for learning how to read. So, the process of learning how to read begins way before a child is even ready to read. There are many skills that need to be acquired to help a child read successfully. These include recognising letters and their sounds, enjoying looking at books, being able to follow written words and turning the pages of a book, being able to describe stories, recognising sounds in a word (e.g. rhyming, syllables) and… (I’ve saved one of the most important one for last) vocabulary! It is so important that your child starts acquiring a good vocabulary from a young age because they’re only going to be able to read when they know what a word means!

Let’s talk about vocabulary a little bit more. Vocabulary is something that is acquired both through reading and talking to your baby. In 2012, Professor Rowe and colleagues showed that as early as 18 months, a “language gap” starts to become apparent between toddlers who are regularly read to and verbally engaged with in comparison to those toddlers who aren’t. This gap widens over time and by the time the child is 3 years old, there is a staggering difference between the two groups of 30 million words per year with those toddlers being read to regularly having double the vocabulary, which was shown by work done by Hart and colleagues in 1995 and followed up by Talbot and colleagues in 2015. The important thing to note here is that vocabulary size actually predicts IQ, and has been shown to be linked to faster brain processing speed. Brain processing speed is how quickly your brain responds to information and it is a key skill in learning, academic performance and intellectual development - because it helps develop executive functions such as problem-solving, planning, memory and attention.

What exactly does the science say that should you be doing with your child? Read and speak to them!

Read age-appropriate books early and often. While reading, engage with your child by pointing to and naming pictures and objects and as they grow older asking questions such as “What’s that?” or “What’s happening here?”. Always follow your child’s lead and be prepared to read their favourite books to them again and again! Check out our previous post to learn more about the benefits of this type of joint media engagement.

When speaking to your child, tune into their interests. Pay attention to what your child is interested in and how they are communicating with you. Use this opportunity to start a conversation, this is relevant even for babies as babies are always trying to communicate with us! Use opportunities throughout the day to make conversation with your child and when you do, use a rich vocabulary and talk about complex ideas. Research shows that this drives understanding and thinking skills. For more information about how our use of speech shapes our infant’s language development click here!

But most importantly – have fun! The act of sitting down with your child and reading, with no distractions and providing them your full attention, helps strength the parent-child bond and creates memories like no other!

For more interesting science-based topics on early development check out My Instagram Blog: Happy Little Minds.

Growing Up in the Digital Age

For this month’s #freshfromthelab we are going to be chatting about Professor Rachel Barr’s (Georgetown University) work on how young children learn from media, and what caregivers can do to promote learning.

Media is everywhere in a growing child’s life – child friendly tablet and smartphone games, child-directed TV programmes and even picture books are all considered as types of media. But how do young children learn from these resources, and how do they apply what they have learnt to the real world around them? Understanding this topic is important now more than ever given the ongoing COVID pandemic. A recent USA survey found over half of caregivers said that since the start of the pandemic their child’s screen time had increased by 50% - likely due to a combination of drastic changes to childcare arrangements and home-schooling all whilst parents try to jungle other commitments such as work and household management.

But should we be worried about this increase in screen time and its impact on the next generation’s learning? Short answer: no, providing they have an adult’s helping hand to guide them through the process.

Learning from media during early childhood is limited. Media often doesn’t provide all of the same information that the real world does. A TV programme would likely only provide 2D visual and auditory information. TV also lacks contingent social interaction - the person on the TV cannot respond to your child so, for example, learning how to respond correctly to social cues is limited.

Young children also have difficulties with their own memory flexibility. Young children find it difficult to transfer the knowledge learnt in one form to another – a topic we’ve already covered in ‘Movement: Practice Makes Perfect’ where kids learning to walk would make the same mistakes they had done when learning to crawl. The same goes for transferring knowledge from one media form (e.g. TV) to the real world – something that when not done well we call transfer deficit.

In an ingenious experiment, Professor Barr and her colleagues tested this transfer deficit with a group of 2-3-year-old participants. First, the toddlers were taught a simple puzzle where they had to rearrange shapes on either a magnetic board (real life) or on a tablet (media). In the next stage of the experiment, the young children had to re-create the puzzle that had previously been shown, either with the same or opposite device (magnet board or tablet). The children who learnt and did the puzzle using the same device did the best. Those children who had to do the puzzle with the opposite device had a much larger transfer deficit and preformed relatively poorly on the puzzle task.

But fear not! Like I said earlier, all these little ones needed was a helping hand from their caregiver. When Professor Barr introduced parents to the learning stage of the puzzle task, there was a huge improvement in the ability to transfer what had been learnt from one device with their caregiver to the opposite device. Looking a little more closely at the interactions that were happening between caregiver and child during the learning stage of the task, Professor Barr and colleagues concluded that the caregiver’s joint media engagement was likely supporting the child’s learning process. As adults, we readily do this joint media engagement when showing a picture book to a child. We provide structuring to the learning process by drawing attention to what is important in the book (e.g., pointing at objects or saying something along the lines of “Oh, look at the pretty flower”). We elaborate on the information that is there (e.g., “Look at the cat! He looks like our cat!”). We also provide reassurance (e.g., cuddling) and reward (e.g. “well done!”). All these things are essential for your little one when they are learning. But Professor Barr explains that caregivers often don’t participate in these forms of joint media engagement for media involving touchscreens as they feel all the information the child requires is already there. But as Professor Barr demonstrated it’s not, and children learn best with this media form when guided by a caregiver in a supportive manner. Check out this video for a summary of Professor Barr’s findings when the same age-tailored study is conducted with 15-month old toddler – they also needed parent support in the learning process!

Professor Barr also pointed out that this joint media engagement doesn’t have to be 100% of the time! But every little helps. Why not check out Screen Sense – a FREE science-backed resource pack full of tips and tricks for helping you and your little ones make the most of screen-based media.

So, next time your little one is engrossed in their media of choice maybe try to get involved – point things out, ask questions, and elaborate on what information is provided there. If nothing else, it’s a great bonding exercise and a welcome excuse to disengage from reality for a short while! Check out our app for other activities you and your little one can do together.