Thursday, February 19, 2009

Clever Children

clever, thinking child
The inquiring mind is one step removed from the inquisitive mind. Inquiry requires one to follow up. Apples must have fallen on many heads but Newton followed it up. (I know! I know! No apple fell on Newton's head. The story is probably apocryphal! But my point is made.)

I am sure you observe so many things every day and are intrigued with a few of them. But do you follow up?

You must have heard children speaking to themselves. Even if you do not have one yourself, you must have heard your niece or nephews talking to themselves. Have you tried to listen in? Sometimes? Did you figure out anything special? No? 

Sample this.

"Narratives from the crib" ... was critical in changing the views of many child experts. The project centered on a two-year old girl from New Haven called Emily, whose parents - both university professors - began to notice that before their daughter went to sleep at night she talked to herself. Curious, they put a small microcassette recorder in her crib and, several nights a week, for the next fifteen months, recorded both the conversations they had with Emily as they put her to bed and the conversations she had with herself before she fell asleep. The transcripts - 122 in all - were then analyzed by a group of linguists and psychologists led by Katherine Nelson of Harvard University. What they found was that Emily's conversations with herself were more advanced than her conversations with her parents. In fact, they were significantly advanced.

The above is an extract from The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.


Hmmm... I think I can draw a conclusion here.
I think children of that age take their parents to be dolts. Hence they simplify their speech so that we can understand them. 


Picture courtesy:
Cynthia Turek

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2 comments:

SM said...

hi
nice i agree with you apple and story
nice blog
http://realityviews.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Your mind is probably one step ahead of other bloggers mind thats why i think your blog is one step ahead of other bloggers blogs.

You earned a follower on his day 1. Keep writing these wonderful short stories.

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