Into the Unknown

 

        I am not certain what to include in this journal... I looked in my inbox and did not see the link for the analysis of my lesson plan, perhaps an oversight. So, I'll dabble a bit into the unknown.It feels like much of the process of language development and ultimately reading are actually unknown scientific postulates of how the brain works and how language is acquired. Some of the things that I have learned in this course have helped me to better understand how language development primarily occurs in the earlier stages of life. However, there does not seem to be a clear understanding of the "how". We know the why, but the how seems to allude us and cause the most consternation.

In watching this week's videos, I found the discussion on studying identical versus fraternal twins interesting. The researcher shared that the key part of language development is not how much a language is spoken but if it is understood. This reminds me of my own forays into the initial use of Spanish, but often turned into Spanglish. A laughable effort, but eventually i studied abroad, volunteered in a hospital teaching breastfeeding to Spanish speaking mothers, connected with parents and students alike with a few uttered Spanish phrases. What I learned and I keep in mind when working with my students is that language development and therefore, reading takes time. The problem is do we have enough time.

Ideally, we would want our intervention to be the perfect fix, but what we find is that it sometimes takes years and numerous interventions to take a child to the next level of language attainment, comprehension, fluency and the ability to read. I digress. I think that to be better educators, there needs to be more emphasis put into the different ways in which we learn and how to best meet the needs of all learners. Every child in our room. Every child in our small groups. Every child who enters the building must become a priority. The pandemic has made this particularly challenging, with our lowest performing students more than two years behind and knowing that on average it takes two years to make up one lost year. We continue to know the “why,” but we struggle with the “how.” Thus, we continue to walk into the unknown.

Talk to me baby!

  

   Did you know there is a direct link between play and language development? There is  a connection between play and language development. The interesting thing is that “play” time for young children is being taken away for academic time. Preschool and Kindergarten programs once focused on children's social and emotional growth instead of forcing ill-prepared and developmentally inappropriate lessons that push children to spend more of their school day sitting still for whole group lessons. A specific aspect of play, pretend play, opens the door for children to increase their language development. It starts from interactions with adults and infants (Yogman et al., 2019). 

    According to researchers at the University of Washington, the first three years of life, infants and toddlers learn more than any other three- year period in their life. They learn to respond to a number of different stimuli, motions, facial expressions, reaction and responses of their caregivers (Gaga & Cooper, 2022). This would seem like just a part of spending time with a child, when in actuality, it has a long-lasting impact on children and how they will communicate, written and oral. I believe more parents would spend time interacting with their children if they knew the importance of the time spent with children. 

    “One study sought to understand whether communication could benefit from play. Researchers observed what happened when an infant began playing with a toy.  They found that if the mother responded by manipulating and naming the toys, the baby- when tested three months later would have better language skills (Newland et al., 2019).” Another study showed, “Pretend play is especially beneficial because it allows young children to practice new vocabulary when they speak and to understand others. During social play, they often reciprocate each other’s words and actions to reach agreements (Orr & Geva, 2019).”

    Early learning and play are fundamentally social activities‍ and fuel the development of language and thought (Yogman et al., 2019) Play is not frivolous; it is brain building. Play has been shown to have both direct and indirect effects on brain structure and functioning. Play leads to changes at the molecular (epigenetic), cellular (neuronal connectivity), and behavioral levels (socioemotional and executive functioning skills) that promote learning and adaptive and/or prosocial behavior (Yogman et al., 2019).

    Play should not be underestimated. In fact, early education programs should reconsider the current structure to include more play time. Additionally, parents should be made aware of the importance of their interactions with their infant and toddler children. Then maybe they should say< Talk to me baby!”

References

Gaga, L., & Cooper, B. (2022, January 17). ??? ??? - YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLoEUEDqagQ&feature=youtu.be

Newland, L., Roggman, L., & Boyce, L. (2019, April 11). Home. YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0163638301000674?via%3Dihub

Orr, E., & Geva, R. (2019, January 17). ... ... - YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016363831500003X

Yogman, M., Hutchinson, J., Hirsch Pack, K., & Michnoff Gilinkoff, R. (2019, April 11). Home. YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://watermark.silverchair.com/peds_20182058.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAqEwggKdBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKOMIICigIBADCCAoMGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQM_b1X5x_oNo-FFWhiAgEQgIICVNIQ4hNjKVebNdkv_I0DB9gDZ-hA-Kvb4q0Fy6qfFa

 
"Blame it on the BRAIN"

Did you know that the human ability for learning language is the highest from infant to about 7 years old (Kuhl, 2011)? This ability dramatically decreases as one ages and severely declines at puberty (Kuhl, 2011). The TED talk shared how babies essentially take note of how often they hear a sound (Kuhl, 2011). The most interesting part of this research was that the child’s language acquisition was not effective from a video, but in fact the words had to be heard from an adult actually speaking the language (Kuhl, 2011). 

With just this little nugget of information, you would think that when and how we learn additional languages would shift. Yet, we try to encourage middle, high school and even college students to learn an entirely new language when the most optimal time for this learning should occur when children are in elementary school. It boggles my mind how we have all this research regarding the brain, education, teaching and learning and yet we insist on doing things the way they have always been done.

In watching a number of "brain based" videos, I learned quite a bit about the brain and its functioning with regards to language. One of the videos shared that a damaged brain was used to tell scientists how the brain functions with regard to language (Boston Children's Hospital, 2012). The brains of people who had experienced a brain injury was used to determine what portion of the brain is responsible for language. To use a deficiency to determine why people have a particular portion of the brian that functions seems a bit like backwards design. However, it offers an explanation for the development of language within the human brain.

Another video spoke about the brains of the ape, chimpanzee and other primates who are considered distant relatives of humans (Rilling, 2012). The interesting thing is that although humans have attempted to teach apes a language, they have made no more progress than a three year old child. This video showed the numerous scans of primates’ brains and compared them to the human brain, but ultimately there is no comparison. It would appear that the human brain is unique in its functions. At first, it was thought that it was simply that it had to do with the size of the brain, but it seems that there are several parts of the brain that deal with syntax.

In a video shared based on research from University of California, Berkeley, we learn that by reading a story what parts of the brain are stimulated (Nature Video, 2016). Words, like mom, wife, home and friend are all uniquely coded in the brain (Nature Video, 2016). The experiment showed that blood would be most evident in a particular part of the brain, based on the word (s) in the story (Nature Video, 2016).  From this research it appears that certain words are recognized by certain parts of the brain.This is fascinating! I think this should be shared with people so they can have a better understanding of how the brain functions and impacts language development.

References

Boston Children's Hospital. (2012, May 1). Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience - Nelson Lab - Boston Children's Hospital. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hfCV0IwJsg

Kuhl, P. (2011, February 18). The linguistic genius of babies | Patricia Kuhl. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2XBIkHW954&feature=youtu.be

NativLang. (2013, October 9). Your Brain on Language: Is grammar inside my head? -- Linguistics & Logic 101. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUFdUiJXS4E

Nature Video. (2016, April 27). The brain dictionary. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k61nJkx5aDQ

Rilling, J. (2012). James Rilling - Human Brain Specializations Related to Language. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nqaPAqOmKQ&feature=youtu.be