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Children's Learning & Development

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A study of deaf toddlers suggests that we can support children’s acquisition of language by providing physical links to words, through the use of gestures, facial expressions, and tone.

The relative ease with which children acquire language has produced much debate and theory, mirroring the similar quantity of debate and theory over how we evolved language. One theory of language evolution is that it began with gesture.

A six-month study comparing the effects of two types of infant music class shows that babies can be taught to become sensitive to musical pitch, and that musical activity can improve social and cognitive skills.

I’ve talked before about the benefits of music lessons for children — most recently, for example, how music-based training 'cartoons' improved preschoolers’ verbal IQ. Now a new study extends the findings to infants.

A large study shows the impact of having multiple family disadvantages on cognitive development. A brain scan study finds childhood maltreatment significantly reduces the size of the hippocampus, while another finds parental care can increase it.

Quarter of British children performing poorly due to family disadvantage

Follow-up on an early child-care program for low-income children finds long-term benefits for education and employment. A large study pinpoints the advantages children from higher-income families have over those from low-middle families. Norway shows how extending compulsory education is linked to higher IQ.

Benefits of high quality child care persist 30 years later

Two new reviews debunk several theories for the reasons for gender gaps in math performance.

Is there, or is there not, a gender gap in mathematics performance? And if there is, is it biological or cultural?

A large, long-running study reveals that academic achievement for those with ADHD is hindered by attention problems not hyperactivity.

Data from parents and teachers of 2000 randomly selected children has revealed that only 29% of children with attention problems finished high school compared to 89% of children without such problems. When it came to hyperactivity, the difference was smaller: 40% versus 77%.

A new study finds that the earliest memories children can recall shifts with time, providing support for the theory that children’s memories don’t consolidate in the way adults’ memories do.

Childhood amnesia — our inability to remember almost everything that happened to us when very young — is always interesting. It’s not as simple as an inability to form long-term memories.

A large study of very young twins confirms evidence that environment affects cognitive ability far more for those from poor homes, compared to those from better-off homes.

A study involving 750 sets of twins assessed at about 10 months and 2 years, found that at 10 months, there was no difference in how the children from different socioeconomic backgrounds performed on tests of early cognitive ability.

Male superiority in mental rotation is the most-cited gender difference in cognitive abilities. A new study shows that the difference can be eliminated in 6-year-olds after a mere 8 weeks.

Following a monkey study that found training in spatial memory could raise females to the level of males, and human studies suggesting the video games might help reduce gender differences in spatial processing (see below for these), a new study shows that training in spatial skills can eliminate

Adding to research suggesting type of background noise affects whether it impairs learning or not, a new study indicates white noise has different effects depending on whether the students have attention problems.

Five years ago I reported on a finding that primary school children exposed to loud aircraft noise showed impaired reading comprehension (see below).