July/August 2016
21
feature
New work at I-LABS is investigating whether eye gaze would be
a useful tool for parents of deaf infants. For hearing parents who
don’t know sign language, having a baby born deaf can be over-
whelming as they consider their options for communicating with
their newborn.
Since gaze following relies on visual rather than hearing cues, it
could be a way for parents to interact with their baby and help the
baby stay on track for language, social, and cognitive development.
Parentese as “mother’s milk” for the baby’s brain
Another social behavior that I-LABS has linked with vocabulary growth
is a type of speech known as “parentese,” in which adults speak to
babies in slow, exaggerated tones: “Helloooo! Hoooow are youuuuu?”
Parentese is like “mother’s milk” for the baby’s brain, Kuhl has said.
She and her colleagues reported in a 2014 study that the more
parents spoke in parentese in one-on-one interactions with their
12-month-old infants, the more the babies babbled—a precursor
to speaking words.
6
The researchers followed up with the 26 babies in the study when the
children were 2 years old, when they found that the amount of paren-
tese a child heard at 12 months of age was related to their vocabulary
at 2. And this difference in vocabulary was large. Receptive vocabu-
laries (the number of words the children could understand) differed
by nearly 250 words for 2-year-olds at each end of the spectrum.
By engaging in rich back-and-forth interactions with infants, care-
givers have a remarkable potential to help build their babies’ cogni-
tive skills. By using eye gaze, pointing, and parentese all within the
context of back-and-forth, or serve-and-return interactions, care-
givers can help children gain language skills and learn about the
rich world around them.
Body maps are a first step in emotional bonds
Parents of newborns often hear about skin-to-skin touch, or
“kangaroo care.” The power of nurturing touch between infants
and their caregivers is one of the first ways that parents can express
their love and build emotional bonds with their babies.
Little is known about how the infant brain responds to touch, but
a new research path at I-LABS is changing that.
Last year, I-LABS’ Meltzoff and collaborators found that the infant
brain responds in specific patterns when different parts of the body
are touched. Within the somatosensory “touch” cortex, the area
corresponding to the hand became active when the baby’s hand
was gently touched. The same occurred in the foot area of the
cortex in respond to touch to the baby’s foot.
This spatial organization to touch, known as the “homunculus” in
adult brains, reveals a body map in the infant brain—a finding that
was featured on the cover of the September 2015 issue of Trends
in Cognitive Sciences.
7
In an earlier study, the research team has shown similar activation
in the infant brain when babies watch someone else move a hand
or foot.
8
It’s as though the baby understands that the other person
has a foot, just as the baby has a foot.
What does this mean for forming relationships? Researchers believe
that babies initially connect with other people through their bodies,
a key step in developing emotional bonds.
“Before language, infants learn many skills and social customs by
imitating others. Infants need to map the behaviors they see onto
their own bodies in order to imitate,” Meltzoff said. “Understanding
neural body maps may help explain how infants learn so rapidly
from watching others in their culture.”
Body maps in the infant brain could be a neural mechanism through
which babies can identify their own bodies as separate—yet similar—
to others. In other words, if my hand is the same as your hand, and
my foot the same as your foot, maybe we have other similarities, too.
When a caregiver bounces, cuddles, or tickles a baby—the baby
isn’t just enjoying the physical sensations, but is learning about his
body, as he forms social and emotional bonds with his loved ones.
How to build a baby brain
Parents, early learning professionals, and other caregivers often
ask I-LABS how to use the latest science of early learning in daily
practice with young children.
To answer this need, the I-LABS outreach team is dedicated to
distilling scientific discoveries and making them relevant to the
community. Through talks, online training tools, workshops, and
science exhibits, the I-LABS Outreach team shares science-based
strategies aimed to help all children reach their maximum potential.
“We know babies are born ready to learn, and they learn best from
the people around them,” said Sarah Roseberry Lytle, I-LABS director
of outreach. “The enriching experiences during the first few years
of life make a lasting impression on a child’s brain and set them
up for a lifetime of learning.”
6.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/01/06/babbling-babies-responding-to-
one-on-one-baby-talk-master-more-words/
7.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2015/09/08/uw-researchers-are-pioneering-
research-on-body-maps-in-babies-brains/
8.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/10/30/a-first-step-in-learning-by-
imitation-baby-brains-respond-to-anothers-actions/
More resources
:
I-LABS Online training modules:
http://modules.ilabs.uw.edu/outreach-modules/
