Words and Language

Lately I've been amazed at how quickly my girls are gaining language skills. My one year old is understanding language in ways that surprize me everyday, and my three year old is communicating really complex thoughts. I'm really in awe about children's ability to learn, and especially their ability to learn language. Tonight I listened to a radiocast on words and langniguage. Words give us meaning and change the way we experience this world. One interesting fact about kids is that around the age of 6 certain language processing skills are developed. Hum...maybe this is why age 6 is the age that most kids are really developing literacy skills. In the March 11, 2011 Science magazine, there was an article about how children gain language and that they make generalizations correctly when exposed to limited data when statistical computer models say those generalizations shouldn't be made. The human mind is incredible. The article pointed out that we do this as adults as well, but that children are doing it constantly.