Study shows how children learn language through physical interactions

For adults, communicating in our first language seems easy and natural. However, language learning is a complex process that is influenced by many factors.

When children are starting to learn language, some influences, such as the amount of speech they listen to and the amount of time they spend in linguistic interactions with others, have what may seem like obvious connections to language learning.

Perhaps less obvious is that the own physical experiences of children with their environment help them to learn new words.

In new cognitive science research, researchers investigate how this is the case, considering how children learn words that refer to something they can touch, grasp, and interact with.

Scientists asked parents to rate how easily a child can physically interact with the object, idea or experience to which a word refers.

they discovered than words that refer to objects that children easily interact with they are also words learned at an earlier age.

Spoon: Something you touch

For example, a word like spoon is usually learned before a word like sky. And that relationship holds even when we consider other things that can affect word learning, like how common a word is in everyday language.

Words like spoon and sky are relevant to everyday life and therefore children are likely to hear these words very early in their development. One difference between them is that the spoon refers to something you can touch, grab and interact with, whereas the sky does not.

Why physical experience helps

Our findings agree with those of studies in which infants and young children used small, head-mounted body cameras to record their interactions with objects. These studies show that children’s own physical experience helps them learn new words.

For example, in one study, researchers found that children aged 1 year and 6 months were more likely to to learn the name of a new object when holding that objectand less likely to learn the name if their parents held the new object.

Another study found that children aged 1 year and 3 months who spent more time manipulating new objects learned more nouns when at 1 year and nine months.

Body cameras allow scientists to see the environment from a child’s point of view. This gives them clues as to why it’s easier for children to learn the names of objects they touch and hold.

At any given time, there are many different objects in a child’s vision. When a parent names an object in the environment, a child must find out which object the parent is talking about.

But when children are holding or touching a specific object, that object is much closer to them and fills their vision more, making it easier for them to connect the word their parents used with the object they see.

child interactions

Physical experience is also related to how children use and process language. Words like spoon that refer to objects that are easy for a child to interact with are named more quickly by children as young as 6 years old.

This is likely because the child’s physical experience makes it easier to connect the meaning of a word with the written letters or spoken sounds of the word itself, a process that happens every time we read or hear a word.

A more recent study also found that words referring to objects that are easy to interact with were easier to read and recognize for children in second and fourth grades.

Interestingly, the researchers also found that the kids who had the most screen time each day were less likely to show this benefit: they weren’t as quick or accurate at recognizing words that refer to easy-to-interact objects.

This is because increased screen time can reduce the quantity and quality of physical experiences children have with objects in their environment.

Play and tell subjects

Word learning is easier when a child can interact with an object while hearing that object’s name, rather than seeing the object presented by a parent or on a screen.

This is not possible for all objects, and children will learn the words for concepts they cannot touch, such as sky, even without physical interaction. But this research shows that it can be helpful to give children opportunities to touch and feel the things they are learning the words for, as long as it is safe to do so.

When children are able to touch, grasp and interact with things in their environmentthey develop their motor skills. By studying how children learn different types of words, the research exemplifies the ways in which physical experiences are not only important for a child’s motor learning, but also for word learning, the researchers say.

This means that giving kids more opportunities to physically interact with their real, rather than virtual, environment is good for their bodies and brains.

Source: CNN Brasil

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