Looks Who is Talking Now

When I was growing up we never worried if the words we spoke were understood by babies 6 to 9 months old.  You talked to them, they babbled back to you, you fed them or changed their diaper and sent them on their way.  A new study was conducted to understand if babies 6 to 9 months old understand the meaning of words.  I say just wait until the child gets to 5-years-old and they’ll understand how to ask you to buy them everything in the toy store.  When they get to be teenagers you’ll wish you had a home voice box removal kit designed for use on teens.  My comments on this press release are in Italics.

The Meaning of Many Spoken Words Understood By 6- To 9-Month-Olds

At an age when "ba-ba" and "da-da" may be their only utterances, infants nevertheless comprehend words for many common objects, according to a new study.

So what?  Now if they could understand how to get a job THAT would be impressive.

In research focused on 6-to-9-month-old babies, University of Pennsylvania psychologists Elika Bergelson and Daniel Swingley demonstrated that the infants learned the meanings of words for foods and body parts through their daily experience with the language.

Haven’t they ever seen the commercials from E*Trade?  Those kids not only talks but understand how to trade stocks.  I think these researchers should spend time studying those children.

These findings unseat a previously held consensus about infant learning. It was widely believed that infants between 6 and 9 months, while able to perceive and understand elements of the sounds of their native language, did not yet possess the ability to grasp the meanings conveyed through speech.

The researchers are confused.  It was widely believed nobody really cared as long as their child was healthy and developing normally.  These researchers should study why children don’t seem to comprehend the word “no” even into adulthood.

Bergelson and Swingley recruited caregivers to bring their children to a lab to complete two different kinds of test. In the first, a child sat on the caregiver's lap facing a screen on which there were images of one food item and one body part.

What body part?  Even at that age, I’m sure there are body parts that would get different reactions.  I wonder if this type of research has ever been done using teenagers.

The second kind of test had the same set-up except instead of the screen displaying a food item and a body part, it displayed objects in natural contexts such as a few foods laid out on a table or a human figure.

Was the human figure displayed in a natural context?  Was it of dad drinking beer and watching sports or of mom yelling at dad for drinking too much beer and spending too much time watching sports?  That's something I think kids understand at an early age.    

In both the two-picture and scene tests, the researchers found that the 6- to 9-month-old babies fixed their gaze more on the picture that was named rather than on the other image or images, indicating that they understood that the word was associated with the appropriate object.

I wonder if any of these researchers have children.  Gazing at things at that age takes up quite a bit of time.  Maybe the kids were thinking how bored they were being forced to sit on someone’s lap and look at pictures.  They probably wanted to down and explore the stuff in the research lab.

"We're testing things that look different every time you see them," Bergelson said. "There's some variety in apples and noses and 'nose' doesn't just mean your nose; it could mean anybody's nose. This is one of the things that make word learning complicated: words often refer to categories and not just individuals."

Huh?  Who paid for this study?  If you just show pictures to a kid all day and record the results you make way too much money no matter how much you’re paid. Words also often refer to expressions such as...WHAT? 

The study's novel results contribute to an ongoing debate about infant language acquisition and cognitive development.

With the brilliance displayed by the researchers involved with this study, it makes you wonder what’s next on their agenda.  Will they turn their well-developed intellect toward unlocking other mysteries such as why children drool while teething, why children make a funny face before they fill their diapers?  Such priceless information is likely to enlighten all parents in the present and future.  (For any researchers reading this, the previous paragraph was sarcasm.  Just ask any child 6 to 9 months old.)

Here is a link to the story.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120213154057.htm