Little Brains Big Research

 

By Paula Bock / ©2005,

The Seattle Times, Knight Ridder Newspapers.

Distributed by Tribune Media Services International.

 

Research reveals more of what happens inside an infant’s little mind

 

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What do babies know, and when do they learn it? When is the best time for them to learn a language?

 

Baby-brain research is now hot—a topic that has landed researchers millions in funding, appearances on talk shows and even invitations to the White House for conferences on early childhood education.

 

Another measure of the field’s rise: The University of Washington last year devoted prime real estate to the new Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS). Considered a top lab of its kind, I-LABS collaborates with scientists in 40 countries, pulling in more than $4 million in funding last year.

 

Technological advances enable scientists to precisely tell what babies watch, how they sort sounds, when “critical windows” of learning open and close, and what infants understand about other people’s actions, likes, dislikes and intentions.

 

Baby experiments

 

At I-LABS, professors Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff—leading scientists in the field of baby-brain research—conduct experiments to figure out what babies know and when they learn it. Would just-born babies imitate an adult when he stuck his tongue out? Yes! Without ever seeing their own faces, newborns come into the world knowing they are like other humans. This discovery demonstrated that babies make a connection between themselves and others, right from the moment of birth.

 

“We’re a role model for babies from the moment they look up at us and begin to sculpt their own activities according to what they see in the culture around them,” Meltzoff says. This shook the foundations of developmental psychology. The traditional view held that newborns came into the world with no knowledge of other people.

 

Kuhl—considered the world’s leading authority on speech development—believes a baby is a scientific miracle, the best learning machine on the planet. They’re quick to recognize and manipulate the social cues that govern everything from war to animal cookies.