Average brain weights
Male, in grams, (Female)
Newborn 380 (360)
1 year 970 (940)
2 years 1,120 (1,040)
3 years 1,270 (1,090)
10-12 years 1,440 (1,260)
19-21 years 1,450 (1,310)
56-60 years 1,370 (1,250)
81-85 years 1,310 (1,170)
(Data from Dekaban, A.S. and Sadowsky, D., Changes in brain weights during the span of human life: relation of brain weights to body heights and body weights, Ann. Neurology, 4:345-356, 1978)
29.9.09
Bilingual Babies Get Head Start -- Before They Can Talk
James Owen
for National Geographic News
April 13, 2009
Even before they can babble a single word, babies in bilingual households may get a head start in life, according to a team of scientists in Italy.
Rather than confusing babies, hearing more than one language gives newborns a mental boost, according to the new study, which tested seven-month-old infants.
"In many European countries, parents are wary of giving a bilingual education to their kids and try to speak only one language," said study author Jacques Mehler of the Language, Cognition, and Development Lab at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy.
"They are afraid [their children] might suffer when they get to school and so on," Mehler said. "Because of our results, I doubt that very much."
[Sam's remark: Babies brought up in multi-lingual regions like Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland and Scandinavia never get confused. They grow up to become more gifted in languages than children brought up in monolingual countries like France, Japan or China.]
for National Geographic News
April 13, 2009
Even before they can babble a single word, babies in bilingual households may get a head start in life, according to a team of scientists in Italy.
Rather than confusing babies, hearing more than one language gives newborns a mental boost, according to the new study, which tested seven-month-old infants.
"In many European countries, parents are wary of giving a bilingual education to their kids and try to speak only one language," said study author Jacques Mehler of the Language, Cognition, and Development Lab at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy.
"They are afraid [their children] might suffer when they get to school and so on," Mehler said. "Because of our results, I doubt that very much."
[Sam's remark: Babies brought up in multi-lingual regions like Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland and Scandinavia never get confused. They grow up to become more gifted in languages than children brought up in monolingual countries like France, Japan or China.]
27.9.09
What role do parents play in a baby's brain development?
Parents are another important part of the developmental equation. Infants prefer human stimuli--your face, voice, touch, and even smell--over everything else. They innately orient to people's faces and would rather listen to a speech or singing than any other kind of sound.
Just as newborn babies are born with a set of very useful instincts for surviving and orienting to their new environment, parents are equally programmed to love and respond to our babies' cues. Most adults (and children) find infants irresistible, and instinctively want to nurture and protect them. It is certainly no accident that the affection most parents feel towards their babies and the kind of attention we most want to shower them with—touching, holding, comforting, rocking, singing and talking to—provide precisely the best kind of stimulation for their growing brains. Because brain development is so heavily dependent on early experience, most babies will receive the right kind of nurturing from their earliest days, through our loving urges and parenting instincts.
In spite of all the recent hype about "making your baby smarter," scientists have not discovered any special tricks for enhancing the natural wiring phase in children's brain development. Normal, loving, responsive caregiving seems to provide babies with the ideal environment for encouraging their own exploration, which is always the best route to learning.
The one form of stimulation that has been proven to make a difference is language: infants and children who are conversed with, read to, and otherwise engaged in lots of verbal interaction show somewhat more advanced linguistic skills than children who are not as verbally engaged by their caregivers. Because language is fundamental to most of the rest of cognitive development, this simple action—talking and listening to your child—is one of the best ways to make the most of his or her critical brain-building years.
[Sam's remark: Parents should spend more time talking to and playing with their baby every day. When parents are at work, they can arrange their baby to join the Gifted Babies program at Le Beaumont, once, twice, three, four or five times a week. We create a rich language environment that models on the Scandinavian countries where people are especially gifted in languages because of their early exposure to a greater variety of languages.
Our observation in the past 5 years is that babies joing our program once or twice a week is perceivably more responsive to babies who have not joined the program. At the same time, babies joining the program 4 or 5 times a week are perceivably more responsive and intelligent than babies joining the program once or twice a week. Wiring of brain synapses takes place at a rate of up to 30,000 units per minute during the sensitive early years. The frequency of visits to the centre directly affects the memory size in the brain that is built up over a period of 2 to 3 years
Le Beaumont has invested $40M in R & D and in building up an international team of high quality graduate teachers from all over the world for our baby program. We believe that the stimulation and development that your baby receives in the foundation years is critical to future development and is much more important than the kindergarten or primary school years.]
Zero to Three
http://www.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ter_key_brainFAQ#role
Just as newborn babies are born with a set of very useful instincts for surviving and orienting to their new environment, parents are equally programmed to love and respond to our babies' cues. Most adults (and children) find infants irresistible, and instinctively want to nurture and protect them. It is certainly no accident that the affection most parents feel towards their babies and the kind of attention we most want to shower them with—touching, holding, comforting, rocking, singing and talking to—provide precisely the best kind of stimulation for their growing brains. Because brain development is so heavily dependent on early experience, most babies will receive the right kind of nurturing from their earliest days, through our loving urges and parenting instincts.
In spite of all the recent hype about "making your baby smarter," scientists have not discovered any special tricks for enhancing the natural wiring phase in children's brain development. Normal, loving, responsive caregiving seems to provide babies with the ideal environment for encouraging their own exploration, which is always the best route to learning.
The one form of stimulation that has been proven to make a difference is language: infants and children who are conversed with, read to, and otherwise engaged in lots of verbal interaction show somewhat more advanced linguistic skills than children who are not as verbally engaged by their caregivers. Because language is fundamental to most of the rest of cognitive development, this simple action—talking and listening to your child—is one of the best ways to make the most of his or her critical brain-building years.
[Sam's remark: Parents should spend more time talking to and playing with their baby every day. When parents are at work, they can arrange their baby to join the Gifted Babies program at Le Beaumont, once, twice, three, four or five times a week. We create a rich language environment that models on the Scandinavian countries where people are especially gifted in languages because of their early exposure to a greater variety of languages.
Our observation in the past 5 years is that babies joing our program once or twice a week is perceivably more responsive to babies who have not joined the program. At the same time, babies joining the program 4 or 5 times a week are perceivably more responsive and intelligent than babies joining the program once or twice a week. Wiring of brain synapses takes place at a rate of up to 30,000 units per minute during the sensitive early years. The frequency of visits to the centre directly affects the memory size in the brain that is built up over a period of 2 to 3 years
Le Beaumont has invested $40M in R & D and in building up an international team of high quality graduate teachers from all over the world for our baby program. We believe that the stimulation and development that your baby receives in the foundation years is critical to future development and is much more important than the kindergarten or primary school years.]
Zero to Three
http://www.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ter_key_brainFAQ#role
26.9.09
How Early Experiences Affect Brain Development
Recent advances in brain research have provided great insight into how the brain, the most immature of all organs at birth, continues to grow and develop after birth. Whereas this growth had been thought to be determined primarily by genetics, scientists now believe that it is also highly dependent upon the child’s experiences. Research shows that, like protein, fat, and vitamins, interactions with other people and objects are vital nutrients for the growing and developing brain, and different experiences can cause the brain to develop in different ways. It is this "plasticity" of the brain, its ability to develop and change in response to the demands of the environment, that will enable Michael to learn how to use computers as successfully as his ancestors learned how to hunt animals in the wild.
As he grows, Michael’s ability to understand language, solve problems, and get along with other people will be influenced by what he experiences as an infant and young child. This is not to say that individual genetic differences have no influence on how a child develops; they do. But there is mounting evidence that experiences affect the way genes are expressed (i.e., turned on and off) in the developing brain. While good early experiences help the brain to develop well, experiences of neglect and abuse can literally cause some genetically normal children to become mentally retarded or to develop serious emotional difficulties.
It is now clear that what a child experiences in the first years of life profoundly influences how his brain will develop and how he will interact with the world throughout his life. Parents play the most important role in providing the nurturing and stimulation that children require. [Sam's remarks: Working parents should enroll their babies in playgroups on weekdays, when they have little time to play with the baby, not on weekends when parents are able to play with the baby themselves.]
Children who are abused or severely neglected are at extremely high risk of developing emotional, behavioral, social, and intellectual disabilities. Research has shown that in the majority of infant care arrangements in the U.S., children are not talked to and played with enough.
[Sam's remark: Beaumont Gifted Babies Program ensures that babies can join an hour's activity during each weekday. We also train up domestic helpers how to play with a baby. The program is highly interactive, rich in language stimulation, and addresses the emotional, social and intellectual development of a baby through songs, group activities and games in a wide range of languages. Evidence shows that younger the baby, the better. The ability to pick up key languages in the world effortlessly from an international team of graduate teachers is an added bonus. The program is tailor-made for working parents and for parents who want to realize the full potential of their child.)
Zero to Three,
http://www.zerotothree.org/site/DocServer/startingsmart.pdf?docID=2422
As he grows, Michael’s ability to understand language, solve problems, and get along with other people will be influenced by what he experiences as an infant and young child. This is not to say that individual genetic differences have no influence on how a child develops; they do. But there is mounting evidence that experiences affect the way genes are expressed (i.e., turned on and off) in the developing brain. While good early experiences help the brain to develop well, experiences of neglect and abuse can literally cause some genetically normal children to become mentally retarded or to develop serious emotional difficulties.
It is now clear that what a child experiences in the first years of life profoundly influences how his brain will develop and how he will interact with the world throughout his life. Parents play the most important role in providing the nurturing and stimulation that children require. [Sam's remarks: Working parents should enroll their babies in playgroups on weekdays, when they have little time to play with the baby, not on weekends when parents are able to play with the baby themselves.]
Children who are abused or severely neglected are at extremely high risk of developing emotional, behavioral, social, and intellectual disabilities. Research has shown that in the majority of infant care arrangements in the U.S., children are not talked to and played with enough.
[Sam's remark: Beaumont Gifted Babies Program ensures that babies can join an hour's activity during each weekday. We also train up domestic helpers how to play with a baby. The program is highly interactive, rich in language stimulation, and addresses the emotional, social and intellectual development of a baby through songs, group activities and games in a wide range of languages. Evidence shows that younger the baby, the better. The ability to pick up key languages in the world effortlessly from an international team of graduate teachers is an added bonus. The program is tailor-made for working parents and for parents who want to realize the full potential of their child.)
Zero to Three,
http://www.zerotothree.org/site/DocServer/startingsmart.pdf?docID=2422
5.9.09
R & D in Le Beaumont Language Centre rolls on
Dear Mr. Sam,
Thank you for the compliment and since i share the same view about early exposure of the babies to languages and to any sorts of brain enrichment i would like to say that what i noticed through my experience are the following:
1. 1st year baby: most of them were attentive to the different activities however they don't need too many different ones as repetition is a main key for them to understand their role in the game. Once they got it the same game should be repeated adding a further step and so on. It was amazing seeing them trying to talk or laughing as soon as they recognize a song or a game - inasmuch as the steps to reach to a baby brain is first to make him feel secure, second to repeat till it's familiar to him, third they will open their brain and start memorizing, four they will try to communicate what they have already registered through physical manifest of happiness (either jumping in their parents hands or laughing) or making sounds (baby talks).
2. 2nd year baby: was repeating most of the words taught - too many of them were repeating sentences - and some of them knew how to answer back to a question - the parents were amazed when they saw their kid answering with the right answer. I have received too many thanks from parents telling me that their kids learned a lot from me. I didn't have a standard frame for all the kids with the same age - i had a frame for each kid - i had a general one and then an individual according to each kid ability to learn - i was giving more to a kid who was learning fast and less to a kid who was struggling just not to discourage him but always to compliment his efforts. Since the baby brain starts wiring itself in the womb and continue after birth, the baby is ready for just anything. But because it's all new to him, he needs to take time to get familiar with the new situation.
3. 3rd year baby: have already a certain personality so his contribution in the game will not be only repeating what i say or do but add his manners and character to it. As a result too many parents witnessed beautiful funny reactions from their kids. A 3-4 year old was super fun to teach as the kids get all the different old or new stuff almost immediately and they engage more with the teacher. That was encouraging me to be more creative and was taking advantage to feed their brains with more knowledge.
The only downside i noticed about the parents and not the kids is that they force their kid to learn - the same kid was nervous and hyper in the class when one of his parents was with him and relaxed and concentrated and happy about learning when alone or with the "cheche". Parents should be told that there's no point in forcing their kid to learning it's totally the opposite as the kid will soon hate to learn not because anything wrong done inside the class but because he's forced.
Learning should always be a pure enjoyment - kids need to show that they are having fun whilst learning - i had too many games to teach the verbs (i managed to teach 43 new verbs to all the ages through games and all the babies regardless the age learnt most of them. Eventually i started putting the verbs taught in wrong sentences and ask the kids to tell me if what i said is right or wrong and they were all answering that i was wrong and then i gave the right sentence and they all agreed on it - all through fun games).
The other thing i noticed about some parents is that they think they have the right to manage the class as long as they are paying to one kid in this class even though they know nothing about neither the language nor teaching - most of their remarks were wrong but they like to give their instructions and know that they are followed. That was a hassle to the other parents, to their kids classmates and to the teacher. I leave these notes in your capable hands and i'm pretty sure that you know how to solve them.
If intelligence is the ability to learn, then babies are born geniuses. It was an awesome experience i wish i could have done it for a longer period of time. Seeing the baby progress and knowing that i'm part of the reason why this baby who born as genius has the chance to keep his intelligence level high, the feeling was just amazing.
Thank you again Mr. Sam for everything and i mean it; you have opened my eyes to such an exciting world of teaching babies and i can say that i did benefit not only from the work experience but as a well from a prenatal teaching for my baby.
Wish you all the best in your business as you are helping the future society to be built on geniuses.
Best of luck,
(R)(French teacher in Le Beaumont until her emmigration to Australia)
Thank you for the compliment and since i share the same view about early exposure of the babies to languages and to any sorts of brain enrichment i would like to say that what i noticed through my experience are the following:
1. 1st year baby: most of them were attentive to the different activities however they don't need too many different ones as repetition is a main key for them to understand their role in the game. Once they got it the same game should be repeated adding a further step and so on. It was amazing seeing them trying to talk or laughing as soon as they recognize a song or a game - inasmuch as the steps to reach to a baby brain is first to make him feel secure, second to repeat till it's familiar to him, third they will open their brain and start memorizing, four they will try to communicate what they have already registered through physical manifest of happiness (either jumping in their parents hands or laughing) or making sounds (baby talks).
2. 2nd year baby: was repeating most of the words taught - too many of them were repeating sentences - and some of them knew how to answer back to a question - the parents were amazed when they saw their kid answering with the right answer. I have received too many thanks from parents telling me that their kids learned a lot from me. I didn't have a standard frame for all the kids with the same age - i had a frame for each kid - i had a general one and then an individual according to each kid ability to learn - i was giving more to a kid who was learning fast and less to a kid who was struggling just not to discourage him but always to compliment his efforts. Since the baby brain starts wiring itself in the womb and continue after birth, the baby is ready for just anything. But because it's all new to him, he needs to take time to get familiar with the new situation.
3. 3rd year baby: have already a certain personality so his contribution in the game will not be only repeating what i say or do but add his manners and character to it. As a result too many parents witnessed beautiful funny reactions from their kids. A 3-4 year old was super fun to teach as the kids get all the different old or new stuff almost immediately and they engage more with the teacher. That was encouraging me to be more creative and was taking advantage to feed their brains with more knowledge.
The only downside i noticed about the parents and not the kids is that they force their kid to learn - the same kid was nervous and hyper in the class when one of his parents was with him and relaxed and concentrated and happy about learning when alone or with the "cheche". Parents should be told that there's no point in forcing their kid to learning it's totally the opposite as the kid will soon hate to learn not because anything wrong done inside the class but because he's forced.
Learning should always be a pure enjoyment - kids need to show that they are having fun whilst learning - i had too many games to teach the verbs (i managed to teach 43 new verbs to all the ages through games and all the babies regardless the age learnt most of them. Eventually i started putting the verbs taught in wrong sentences and ask the kids to tell me if what i said is right or wrong and they were all answering that i was wrong and then i gave the right sentence and they all agreed on it - all through fun games).
The other thing i noticed about some parents is that they think they have the right to manage the class as long as they are paying to one kid in this class even though they know nothing about neither the language nor teaching - most of their remarks were wrong but they like to give their instructions and know that they are followed. That was a hassle to the other parents, to their kids classmates and to the teacher. I leave these notes in your capable hands and i'm pretty sure that you know how to solve them.
If intelligence is the ability to learn, then babies are born geniuses. It was an awesome experience i wish i could have done it for a longer period of time. Seeing the baby progress and knowing that i'm part of the reason why this baby who born as genius has the chance to keep his intelligence level high, the feeling was just amazing.
Thank you again Mr. Sam for everything and i mean it; you have opened my eyes to such an exciting world of teaching babies and i can say that i did benefit not only from the work experience but as a well from a prenatal teaching for my baby.
Wish you all the best in your business as you are helping the future society to be built on geniuses.
Best of luck,
(R)(French teacher in Le Beaumont until her emmigration to Australia)
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