Read Online I Can Hear You Whisper by Lydia Denworth - Free Book Online
Authors: Lydia Denworth
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sun hat. It looks as if weâd just shared a lovely joke. Iâm sure I said something silly, just as Iâm sure he didnât hear me. Despite that, the picture is evidence of communication. From my facial expression and perhaps my gestures, to which he must have been keenly attuned, he knew to start giggling.
Deaf babies learning sign language, Vouloumanos told me, use a fuller range of visual cues that echo the acoustic cues hearing babies hear, such as watching for pauses between phrases. They babble with their hands and when they do vocalize the sounds of English, they use far more sounds that they can see (such as âbaâ) on the lips of the talker. Blind babies, by comparison, babble differently. They use more sounds that do not rely on visible articulations, such as âga.â
Vouloumanos is in the midst of studying gesture by asking if babies understand from the beginning that pointing is communicative. Her hunch is that they do, that babies understand that someone who is pointing is trying to direct their attention. There is disagreement about how old an infant is before she understands that by pointing at an object or person, I want to tell her something about that object or person. If a baby points at a toy, is he underlining his own interest in that toy? Or is he trying to get his mother to share his interest? When his mother points at a different toy, sheâs creating a line of sight and movement with something interesting at the end of that line. The studies thus far have shown that by fourteen months of age, babies do understand what they can accomplish by pointing. When we met, Vouloumanos was bringing eleven-month-olds into the lab to see what they knew. What I knew was that during the year he was one, Alex had an entire vocabulary in his forefinger. Point to Mom, point to the swing, point to himself. Mom gets the message that he wants to be pushed. The length and strength of the pointing indicated the intensity of his feelings.
Social cues are particularly intriguing to researchers these days. If, as Vouloumanos suggested, language is a cooperative, social activity, itâs important to understand what aspects of it derive from social interaction. The latest research attempts to tease out the relationship between language and social skills. In general, babies with better social skills also develop better language skills. Returning to songbirds for a moment, neuroscientists have found that the neurological period in which young birds are able to learn can be extended by social interaction. For humans, the question is, âWhich comes first?â says Vouloumanos. Or to put it in academic terms, which is the âmotor of developmentâ?
Finely honed social skills were a good explanation for how Alex functioned in his first two years of life and how he compensated for his inability to hear the words people were saying. In retrospect, it was obvious. At the time, it was subtle. If someone asked him to throw away a piece of crumpled paper, he walked backward toward the garbage can, watching for confirmation that he had guessed correctly what was wanted. Nods and smiles were a pretty good indication he was right. At the child care center he attended a few days a week, the teacher always helped the children wash their hands after playing outside. Armed with a washcloth, sheâd ask Alex to hold out his hands. He held out his hands. One day, armed with a washcloth as usual, she noticed a smudge on his cheek and told him she wanted to wash his face. He held out his hands. It was only later, heartsick at having missed the signs, that the teacher remembered the incident and told me about it.
I described these examples to Vouloumanos. With two older siblings and talkative parents, she suggested, âAlex had all the social cues: smiling, interacting, turn taking. The social scaffolding was there. Linguistic input was the thing he wasnât getting. He developed a narrative
Deaf babies learning sign language, Vouloumanos told me, use a fuller range of visual cues that echo the acoustic cues hearing babies hear, such as watching for pauses between phrases. They babble with their hands and when they do vocalize the sounds of English, they use far more sounds that they can see (such as âbaâ) on the lips of the talker. Blind babies, by comparison, babble differently. They use more sounds that do not rely on visible articulations, such as âga.â
Vouloumanos is in the midst of studying gesture by asking if babies understand from the beginning that pointing is communicative. Her hunch is that they do, that babies understand that someone who is pointing is trying to direct their attention. There is disagreement about how old an infant is before she understands that by pointing at an object or person, I want to tell her something about that object or person. If a baby points at a toy, is he underlining his own interest in that toy? Or is he trying to get his mother to share his interest? When his mother points at a different toy, sheâs creating a line of sight and movement with something interesting at the end of that line. The studies thus far have shown that by fourteen months of age, babies do understand what they can accomplish by pointing. When we met, Vouloumanos was bringing eleven-month-olds into the lab to see what they knew. What I knew was that during the year he was one, Alex had an entire vocabulary in his forefinger. Point to Mom, point to the swing, point to himself. Mom gets the message that he wants to be pushed. The length and strength of the pointing indicated the intensity of his feelings.
Social cues are particularly intriguing to researchers these days. If, as Vouloumanos suggested, language is a cooperative, social activity, itâs important to understand what aspects of it derive from social interaction. The latest research attempts to tease out the relationship between language and social skills. In general, babies with better social skills also develop better language skills. Returning to songbirds for a moment, neuroscientists have found that the neurological period in which young birds are able to learn can be extended by social interaction. For humans, the question is, âWhich comes first?â says Vouloumanos. Or to put it in academic terms, which is the âmotor of developmentâ?
Finely honed social skills were a good explanation for how Alex functioned in his first two years of life and how he compensated for his inability to hear the words people were saying. In retrospect, it was obvious. At the time, it was subtle. If someone asked him to throw away a piece of crumpled paper, he walked backward toward the garbage can, watching for confirmation that he had guessed correctly what was wanted. Nods and smiles were a pretty good indication he was right. At the child care center he attended a few days a week, the teacher always helped the children wash their hands after playing outside. Armed with a washcloth, sheâd ask Alex to hold out his hands. He held out his hands. One day, armed with a washcloth as usual, she noticed a smudge on his cheek and told him she wanted to wash his face. He held out his hands. It was only later, heartsick at having missed the signs, that the teacher remembered the incident and told me about it.
I described these examples to Vouloumanos. With two older siblings and talkative parents, she suggested, âAlex had all the social cues: smiling, interacting, turn taking. The social scaffolding was there. Linguistic input was the thing he wasnât getting. He developed a narrative
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