Learning in Children Enhanced with Talking

There has been clear evidence showing that talking intelligently to children leads to an increase in their vocabulary at a faster rate than those not exposed to such words. Yet, new findings suggest that the quantity of words a toddler hears in their early age is not the only aspect to learning. An article in the Scientific American by Claudia Wallis outlines some new findings on this topic. It is believed that quality is much more important than quantity--this includes back-and-forth conversations; or more simply put, talking with your child rather than talking to them. 

A study conducted at MIT by neuroscientist Dr. John Gabrieli used fMRI imaging to conclude such results. 36 children from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds were first given standardized tests to evaluate verbal ability. They then scanned the children while simultaneously listening to short stories, focusing on Broca's area changes. 

After scans, adult-child communication was monitored at home for two days. Their initial findings confirmed past studies concluding children from wealthier households hear more words than those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Yet, they found that the number of conversational turns the child was exposed to correlated with intensity of Broca's area intensity during the fMRI story session. 

Dr. Elizabeth Wakefield used similar fMRI methods in order to study learning in children, focusing on the difference between active and passive learning, as well as the difference between actions vs. gestures. Her studies were conducted by first having children learn new, made-up verbs and associate them with the particular action the verb was describing. In one particular group, the children were taught using the action itself on the object, while in another group the children were taught by using gestures of the action without performing the action directly onto a particular object. It is thought that using active actions leads to a decrease in generalization--that is, children often associate the object with the action rather than the action being an entirely separate entity. 

Using fMRI images, Dr. Wakefield presented the children with objects that were either associated or not associated with the particular learned or novel verbs. Due to fMRI data, she concluded that children had increased brain activity in particular areas associated with learning, and these signals were stronger when verbs were learned actively rather than passively, as well as when gestures were used as compared to when the action was directly shown on an object. 

Reference:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/talking-with-mdash-not-just-to-mdash-kids-powers-how-they-learn-language/