The Secret Life Of The Brain Analysis

It is believed that babies develop language when they are in the utero and it continues throughout their lifetime. By twelve weeks old, babies may register the sounds they can hear and at the same time make basic visual, auditory and tactile mind maps (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). This allows the infant to turn towards any familiar sounds and noises. Babies begin to communicate with people around them quite quickly. By two months old, babies begin to make ‘cooing’ and other noises; this indicates the phonological component of language development. By six to nine months babies begin to experience with a mixture of sounds, and often you will hear a baby babbling. Babbling development is similar across many different languages and even hearing impaired babies will go through this stage. They may copy the sounds they are introduced too or beginning to recognize familiar

In the article titled, “Secrets of the Brain” published in the February 2014 issue of National Geographic, we learn that there have been many advances in understanding the inner workings of our brains. One of the leading scentists, Van Weeden, is working hard to understand the connections that occur within our heads.

Next, his language is still developing at this point. I showed him a stuffed animal dog and asked him if he could identify it and tell me what it is. The infant gazed at it and responded “woof,woof,woof!” He responded by what the dog sounds like. Secondly, I asked him to point out his body parts. For example, his ears, eyes and belly button. That moment I said belly button he pointed at it. He was able to repeat names and his toys that he owned. As I began to speak in long-complex sentences he stared at me for a second and then looked away and started doing something else.

Babies prefer the sound of humans interacting to other sounds and from this, they quickly learn to recognise and identify their mother’s voice. Babies form their first relationship through emotional attachments with their mother or main carer. The first year of a baby’s life is a period of incredible growth, and a baby’s brain goes through critical periods during which stimulation is needed for proper development. During the babies first years, visual stimuli or verbal language is necessary for areas of the brain to grow and without this growth, a child’s vision or speaking abilities might be impaired. Infants tend to have different cries for hunger or pain, as well as making other noises. These abilities show your child is gaining communication and pre-language skills. Infants from birth to 6 months will forget about objects they cannot see however they begin to explore objects they can see and grab by putting them in their mouths. They will also follow moving objects with their eyes and look around at nearby objects. Infants in this stage will turn to look at a source of sound. These developmental milestones show a baby’s brain is developing and they are gaining new skills. From 7 to 12 months, infants also learn the idea of cause and effect, and they might repeat an action that causes a

I read the article, “Secrets of the Brain”, found in the February 2014 issue of National Geographic written by Carl Zimmer. I chose this subject because I have been fascinated with the brain and how it works. The research of the brain has been ongoing for many centuries now. The history in this article is interesting. It explained how scientists used to understand the brain and its inner workings. For example, “in the ancient world physicians believed that the brain was made of phlegm. Aristotle looked on it as a refrigerator, cooling of the fiery heart. From his time through the Renaissance, anatomists declared with great authority that our perceptions, emotions, reasoning, and actions were all the result of “animal spirits”—mysterious, unknowable vapors that swirled through cavities in our head and traveled through our bodies.” (Zimmer, p. 38)

At around 4-6 months old a baby will have developed an awareness of sound in particularly a person speaking and will turn towards the sound when someone familiar speaks for example their parents. They will start to mimic sounds and start to babble and laugh. Intellectual development is rapid and although they may not be able to speak in more than just babble, their understanding will be greater and they will become much more inquisitive. They will be able to understand simple instructions such as “point to your nose.” By a year old, they’ll be able to say simple words like “Mama” and “Dada” or words with similar sounds. They may start to develop their own language with odd sounding words for common objects that take their interest. Sometimes these words will sound similar to the name of the object particularly if their parents spend time speaking to their child and repeating the names of these objects.

0 – 18 months – Babies love to listen to language and react to the tone and content of what is said to them. They particularly enjoy songs and repetitive games, as they start to learn and predict what will happen, an example being “round and round the garden” and games such as “Peek – a Boo”. By 12 months, they are trying to speak and will often use words in isolation and they will communicate what they want by pointing at an object at the same time as saying “cat”.

Furthermore, the nature-nurture continuum will demonstrate how every child will fall on this continuum that certain behaviors are a result of the child’s genetic makeup and the type of environment the child is raised in. For instance, a child’s intelligence can be considered under either end of the continuum, and for some cases, fall in the middle. If during a child’s development, a part of their brain is not developing properly due to genetic disorders this would be considered a matter of nature. Whereas, if it solely had to deal with the environment or upbringing the child dealt with such as opportunity to good schooling and services, would pertain to nurture. Except for some children, both would apply in that, the child may have inherited a genetic disorder which has affected their brain development and in turn are nurtured through an environment of plenty opportunities and services

The author invites the reader on his own journey to understanding how the developing brain works. He learns that to facilitate recovery, the loss of

The PBS special "The Secret Life of the Brain" took us through all different aspects of the brain and its formation through life. These five movies taught us that the brain is plastic and is always changing, cutting unused neurons and filling with different ideas and thoughts that you learn from your environment. The five videos go through the five stages of life; baby, child, teenager, adult and finally the aging brain.

The debate between many researchers is the argument of whether nature or nurture play a more important role in development. In this essay I will be looking into both aspects of nature and nurture focusing specifically on their influence towards language development in children. A main controversial question I will be looking into is the question of whether are we born already equipped with mechanisms which help us to learn language, or is language learned throughout a child’s environment by, for example, imitation and repetition? Studies done by some opposing researchers claim to show that nature and nurture promote language development

Psychologists constantly offer new testable hypothesis to expand our knowledge on human behavior. This paper will include an analysis of a podcast and a research article. From this analysis, a hypothesis on birth order will be offered toward the end of this paper.

Everyday we are developing no matter our age, but it is how we develop children that will tell a tremendous amount an individual. How a child developments is fundamentally important at a young age as it affects all aspect of their lives once the child matures. Throughout the class, we looked at many theorists during the course of the semester as well as looked at many articles pertaining to the concepts of the development of children. The theorists and articles opened up our minds to a world that we have never seen before and concepts about child development we have never been taught but have seen in the practical work we do every week. What makes humans unique is the ability that we have to interpret the language being used, as Lois Bloom

Language is a communicative system of words and symbols unique to humans. The origins of language are still a mystery as fossil remains cannot speak. However, the rudiments of language can be inferred through studying linguistic development in children and the cognitive and communicative abilities of primates as discussed by Bridgeman (2003). This essay illustrates the skills infants have that will eventually help them to acquire language. The topics covered are firstly, the biological aspects, the contribution of the human brain to language development? Secondly, key theories of language development will be considered. Is the development innate? Is there a critical period? Thirdly, what must be learned? What are the rudiments infants must

However, Pinker (1994) then goes onto note that the particular sub-stage of reduplicated babbling occurs around 7-8 months, and states that the children will exercise phonemes and syllable patterns that are not specific to a singular language, but rather are seen as common across a variety of languages. Yet, Pinker (1994) does also argue that the children are able to distinguish between phonemes of their own mother tongue, which has been seen from birth, and this is seen to be more prominent by the time the child reaches the age of around 10 months. Pinker (1994) refers to this as the children no longer being ‘universal phoneticians’, and states that the children will no longer distinguish foreign phonemes.