Can Babies Learn to Read? A Randomized Trial of Baby Media

© 2008-2013 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Intelligence-boosting products are big business concern: Books, toys, DVDs, software, games, and educational programs designed to make your child into an intellectual prodigy.

Many of these products come with claims–explicit or implicit–that their usefulness is supported by scientific show. Are they really?

Sometimes. For case, every bit I've noted elsewhere, there is evidence that

• playing with blocks may opens in a new windowhelp kids develop a multifariousness of cerebral skills;
• academic programs that opens in a new windowteach critical thinking skill may enhance cerebral functioning;
• some board games opens in a new windowboost preschool math skills; and
• certain video games might opens in a new windowenhance spatial skills.

But many "erudite" products are ineffective. For case, a controlled experiment has failed to show that infants learn to read from media-based instructional programs (Neuman et al 2014). And the evidence suggests that very young children don't learn to talk past watching educational videos. Instead, babies larn linguistic communication by listening to and interacting with opens in a new windowlive human beings (Kuhl 2005).

Then there are misconceptions and folk beliefs, similar the idea that praising children for their intelligence will raise self-esteem and improve their academic functioning.

An impressive series of experiments suggests that the opposite is truthful. Praising kids for being smart tends to make them human action dumb.

Even more than interesting–at least to me–is the discovery that our beliefs near intelligence can hamper the learning process. People who are convinced that intelligence is a fixed, unchanging trait are opens in a new window less likely to learn from their mistakes and less likely to succeed in school.

Moreover, experiments suggest that your child's sensation of opens in a new windowsocial stereotypes about intelligence and achievement (e.grand., "girls accept stronger language skills," or "Asian kids are math prodigies") can undermine his or her academic performance.

And so hither I nowadays my guide to the "good bets"—evidence-based information most the ways that parents can nurture their children's intelligence. I will be adding more than articles over time.

Practice and intelligence

It'southward both intriguing and unexpected: Aerobic do stimulates brain growth and enhances our ability to learn. Studies too suggest that exercise tin can help kids focus attending in school. But there's a grab: To reap full benefits, exercise must be voluntary. Click hither for the whole story.

Play

Gratuitous play promotes better learning, memory, and growth of the cerebral cortex. Information technology too enhances the evolution of linguistic communication, spatial intelligence, counterfactual reasoning, and mathematical skills. For more information, see this commodity about the opens in a new windowcognitive benefits of play.

Working retentivity: The new IQ?

New research indicates that working memory capacity–that mental notepad that we use to think thoughts and solve bug–is a better predictor of school achievement than IQ. Read more nigh opens in a new windowworking memory and the ways we can assist children cope with limitations in working memory capacity.

Gestures

At that place's besides skilful testify that gesturing with your hands improves your ability to retrieve and learn. Cognitive psychologist Susan Goldin-Meadow and her colleagues have conducted a series of experiments showing that kids are more than likely to remember words, events, and even math lessons when they gesture with their hands.

For the details, see this commodity on the opens in a new windowscience of gestures.

Parental sensitivity, attachment security, and intelligence

Researchers have noted a correlation between child IQ scores and attachment condition. For case, ane study of 36 middle-class mothers and their three-year-olds found that securely-attached children scored 12 points higher on the Stanford-Binet intelligence test than did insecurely attached children (Crandell and Hobson 1999).

What'south responsible for this correlation? It's possible that more than intelligent children have an easier time forming secure attachments. For case, more intelligent kids are probably improve at interpreting their parents' behavior and selecting the well-nigh appropriate response (Waters and Valenzuela 1999).

But in that location is also evidence suggesting that responsive parenting—which promotes secure attachments—contributes to higher cognitive ability.

In experiments with families at high gamble for poor kid outcomes, researchers randomly assigned some mothers to receive preparation in responsive parenting techniques. The infants of trained mothers showed greater growth in cognitive skills than did the infants of command moms (Landry et al 2003; 2006).

The results are consistent with a opens in a new windowrecent report that attributes the cognitive advantages of breastfed babies to sensitive, responsive parenting (Gibbs and Forste 2014).

Mindsets for failure: Beliefs that hold your child back

Does your child believe that intelligence is a fixed trait?

Fascinating experiments bespeak that what we believe virtually intelligence tin impede our ability to learn.

People who believe that intelligence is a stock-still, stable trait are more than likely to avoid challenges. They are also less likely to learn from their mistakes–and the difference shows up in bran scans. opens in a new windowRead more about this miracle and how it affects kids.

Does your kid believe that "people similar me" don't do well academically?

If so, her behavior might be undermining her performance in schoolhouse. Sound like politically right propaganda? There is actually a lot of solid experimental evidence confirming the beingness of "stereotype threat." opens in a new windowAcquire more than about this research and what you can do to counteract its effects.

How praise can undermine your child'southward capacity to learn

Praise can be a peachy motivator. But it can also make kids focus on the wrong goals. Inquiry shows that the wrong kinds of praise tin actually undermine motivation and leave kids feeling helpless when they fail. For more than information, meet opens in a new windowthis article about the perils of praising kids for existence smart.

Sleep and intelligence

Sleep and learning

There is a disarming body of evidence to suggest that nosotros are more likely to retain what we've learned-and more probable to accomplish new insights—if we become to slumber soon afterward our studies (Gais et al 2006; Wagner et al 2004).

People don't demand to slumber all nighttime for the consequence to work. Naps equally brusque every bit hr may exist just as effective, equally long every bit they include slow-wave (not-REM) sleep (Mednick et al 2003; Alger et al 2012).

The effect has been demonstrated on opens in a new windowkids likewise every bit adults (Backhaus et al 2008; Kurdziel et al 2013). So it seems to make sense for kids to schedule their studies before naps and bedtime.

Unfortunately, institutionalized learning doesn't make room for study-naps! It would announced that home-schoolers, and other kids with flexible academic schedules, are at a distinct advantage.

Sleep and cognitive development

It's as well possible that chronic sleep restriction has a lasting effect on cognitive performance.

In a study tracking Canadian kids from age two.5 to half-dozen years, researchers found that kids who were poor sleepers as toddlers performed more poorly on neurodevelopmental tests when they were six years old (Touchette et al 2007).

This was truthful even for kids whose sleep improved after age 3. The researchers speculate that at that place may be a "disquisitional period" in early childhood, when the effects of sleep restriction are especially harmful (Touchette et al 2007).

Math, logic, and critical thinking

Stanislaus Dehaene is a cognitive scientist and expert on the mathematical brain.

He argues that many kids have poor math skills because they are discouraged from developing an intuitive sense of number.

For more than information, check out this article nigh opens in a new windownumber sense.

In add-on, run across this commodity near the way that opens in a new windowsome lath games can help preschoolers develop their math skills.

And what almost logic? Experimental studies propose that opens in a new windowexplicit instruction in critical thinking–including lessons in basic logic, hypothesis testing, and scientific reasoning–can heighten a child's IQ.

Unfortunately, such lessons are not yet a mutual part of most loftier school–let alone middle school curricula. Even worse, I suspect that the media and other influences are grooming our kids to think with blinders on. To encounter what I mean, read this commodity on opens in a new windowcritical thinking in children.

How tin we support the development of disquisitional thinking? Come across my article, "Instruction disquisitional thinking: The showtime step is to pause and reverberate."

Spatial intelligence

Spatial skills are crucial for success in a diversity of fields, ranging from physics and engineering to architecture and the visual arts. Your kid's operation on spatial tasks has a hereditary component, but information technology'due south clear that educational experiences can likewise have a big bear on.

Read more about it in my evidence-based overview, opens in a new window"Spatial intelligence in children: Why training matters."

And for research-based activities that may heave your child'southward spatial skills, see opens in a new windowthis article.

Free choice

Kids bear witness greater motivation and perform better when they become to choose what they exercise (Iyengar and Lepper 1999).

Well—that's true for some American kids, anyhow. It turns out that the effect is culture-specific. Ane study compared Anglo-American and Asian American kids. While the Anglo-Americans preferred tasks they had called for themselves, the Asian Americans showed more motivation when their choices were made for them by trusted authority figures or peers (Iyengar and Lepper 1999).

The outcome? There may be no "ane size fits all" approach to classroom learning. Some kids may thrive when teachers requite them choices. Others might find this approach to be disconcerting.

Toys and games that heave cognitive skills

Although there is evidence that action video games opens in a new windowimprove spatial skills and may even help opens in a new windowdyslexic children learn to read, some of the most important developmental toys and games are the most sometime-fashioned.

For instance, research suggests that toy blocks may raise spatial, math, trouble-solving, and verbal skills. Find show-based data nigh blocks and other toys in these opens in a new windowParenting Science pages.

---

Alger SE, Lau H, and Fishbein W. 2012. Slow moving ridge slumber during a daytime nap is necessary for protection from subsequent interference and long-term memory. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 98(2):188-96.

Backhaus J, Hoeckesfeld R, Born J, and Jung. 2008. Immediate every bit well as delayed mail service learning sleep only not wakefulness enhances declarative retentiveness consolidation in children. Neurobiol Larn Mem 89(1): 76-80.

Crandell LE and Hobson RP. 1999. Private differences in young children'south IQ: a social-developmental perspective. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. twoscore(3):455-64.

Gais S, Lucas B, and Built-in J. 2006. Sleep after learning aids retentivity recall. Learning and Memory 13: 259-262.

Iyengar SS and Lepper MR. 1999. Rethinking the value of choice: a cultural perspective on intrinsic motivation. J Pers Soc Psychol. 76(3):349-66.

Only MA and Carpenter PA. 1987. The psychology of reading and language comprehension. Boston: Allyn and Salary.

Kuhl PK. 2005. Early on language conquering: Cracking the speech code. Nature Neuroscience v: 831-843.

Kurdziel L, Duclos K, and Spencer R. 2013. Slumber spindles in midday naps raise learning in preschool children. PNAS (epub ahead of print) doi: ten.1073/pnas.1306418110.

Mednick S, Nakayama K and Stickgold R. 2003. Sleep-dependent learning: A nap is as good as a dark. Nature Neuroscience 6(7); 697-698.

Neuman SB, Kaefer T, Pinkham A, and Strouse G. 2014. Can Babies Acquire to Read? A Randomized Trial of Babe Media.Journal of Educational Psychology DOI: 10.1037/a0035937.

Rayner K. 1998. Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin 124(3): 372-422.

Touchette E, Petit D, Seguin JR, Boivin Thousand, Tremblay RE and Montplaisir JY. 2007. Associations between sleep duration patterns and behavioral/cognitive functioning at school entry. Sleep thirty(ix): 1213-1219.

Wachs TD, Uzgiris IC, and Hunt JM. 1971. Cognitive development in infants of dissimilar age levels and from different environmental backgrounds: An explanatory investigation. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 17: 283-317.

Wachs TD. 1976. Utilization of a Piagetian approach in the investigation of early on experience furnishings: a research strategy and some illustrative data. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 22: 11-30.

Wachs TD and Camli O. 1991. Do ecological or individual characteristics mediate the influence of the physical environment on maternal behavior? Journal of Environmental Psychology 11: 249-264.

Waters E and Valenzuela One thousand. 1999. Explaining disorganized attachment: Clues from research on mildly to moderately undernourished children in Republic of chile. In: J. Solomon and C. George (eds), Attachment disorganization. New York: Guildford Press.

Content last modified 3/14

millerpentat.blogspot.com

Source: https://parentingscience.com/intelligence/

Share this post