toddlers

A new study, helmed by Margaret Friend of the Infant and Child Development Laboratory at San Diego State University, will examine toddlers' language comprehension in an attempt to determine if it is a later predictor of literacy and academic success. Toddlers ranging in age from 16 to 20 months will hear words and be asked to identify images on a touch screen that match the words. They will again be tested at 4 years of age. Children in both bilingual and monolingual families will be tested.

Post by Lisa C.

The Los Angeles Times blogger Melissa Healy reports on an article in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science that poses this question: "is a toddler's lack of self-control key to early learning?"  Babies are born with their prefrontal cortex (that which enables us as adults to filter out distractions and keep on task) virtually undeveloped, and it is this lack of development that allows them to learn things quickly -- like language.  Their inability to pay attention me