Who: Babies, Patricia Kuhl
What: Scientists observe how babies can pick up different languages so much faster than adults and why.
When: January 16, 2008
Where:University of Washington's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences in Seattle.
Why: People want to discover the reason as to why children under the age of seven learn languages so quickly. They also want to know why adults take a lot longer to learn a foreign language.
My Opinion: I think it's really interesting how even though adults may know a lot more than a baby, a baby can learn faster. I wonder why children under the age of seven can learn languages so much quicker than an adult can. If this is so, why don't schools start teaching kids foreign languages when they go to kindergarten? In the article it is said that scientists are very curious about the brains of people who speak more than one language because that skill is hard to acquire. I thought it was also interesting that when the baby was tested with an electrode cap, (which is harmless) the baby showed lots of brain activity when hearing new sounds. But when the baby was put in front of a television listening to the same sounds, they showed nothing. Also, when you learn a new language fluently, your brain forms two pathways which I thought was pretty cool.
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20080116/Feature1.asp
