READING

Multiple Choice

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ORGAN IN OUR BODY?

• BRAIN

• HEART

KEYWORDS

feel (v) to notice something that is near you or is happening to you

hear (v) to be aware of a sound in your ears

hearing (n) the ability to hear

listening (n) the act of giving something your attention using your ears

see (v) to notice things with your eyes

sight (n) the ability to see

smell (v) to notice something with your nose; (n) the ability to notice something with your nose

speech (n) the ability to speak

taste (v) to be able to experience the flavour of something with your tongue; (n) the ability to taste something

touch (v) to feel something by putting your hand or finger on it; (n) the ability to feel something with your hand or finger

The first year of life

If you have any experience of babies, then you know that they develop very quickly. Every week you see huge changes in their bodies and what they have learned to do. But I’d love to know what babies are thinking about, wouldn’t you? And I’d love to understand more about how a baby’s brain works.

A newborn baby can see, hear and feel. By the age of five, a child can talk, ride a bike and invent imaginary friends. How does this development happen? We don’t understand the way language, thinking and planning develop very well. Now scientists are using new technology to ‘see’ into children’s brains. And they are discovering new information about the way a baby’s brain develops.

A study in 2010 showed that the experiences a child has in their first few years affect the development of the brain. It showed that children who received more attention often had higher IQs. The brain of a newborn baby has nearly a hundred billion neurons. This is the same number as an adult’s brain. As they grow, a baby receives information through the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. This information creates connections between different parts of the brain. At the age of three, there are a hundred trillion connections.

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One experiment looked at images of babies’ brains while they were listening to different sounds. The sounds were in different sequences. For example, one sequence was mu-ba-ba. This is the pattern ‘A-B-B’. Another sequence was mu-ba-ge. This is the pattern ‘A-B-C’. The images showed that the part of the brain responsible for speech was more active during ‘A-B-B’ patterns. This shows that babies can tell the difference between different patterns. This experiment is interesting because sequences of words are important to grammar and meaning. Compare two sentences with the same words in a different order: ‘John killed the bear’ is very different from ‘The bear killed John.’ So babies are starting to learn grammatical rules from the beginning of life

Researchers also know that babies need to hear a lot of language in order to understand grammar rules. But there is a big difference between listening to television, audio books or the internet, and interacting with people. One study compared two groups of nine-month-old American babies. One group watched videos of Mandarin Chinese sounds. In the other group, people spoke the same sounds to the babies. The test results showed that the second group could recognise different sounds, however the first group learned nothing. The scientist, Patricia Kuhl, said this result was very surprising. It suggests that social experience is essential to successful brain development in babies.

Multiple Choice

THE PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE IS TO....

• Describe how a new-born baby's brain works.

• Explain new studies into the development of babies’ brains.

Multiple Choice

ACCORDING TO THE ARTICLE WHICH STATEMENT IS TRUE?

• Experiments focusing on language have given researchers new information.

• The development of language is the easiest thing to study in babies.

Multiple Choice

NEW TECHNOLOGY HAS REVEALED ....

• That babies see differently from young children

• Information about child development.

Multiple Choice

WHICH STATEMENT IS SUPPORTED BY THE SECOND PARAGRAPH?

• Early experiences have an effect on brain development

• Babies and three-year-olds have the same number of neurons.

Multiple Choice

WHICH STATEMENT IS TRUE ?

• A pattern like ‘A-B-C’ is easier to understand.

• Babies’ brains recognise different sound patterns.

Multiple Choice

EXPERIMENT WITH SOUNDS PATTERNS...

• Show that babies can begin to understand grammar.

• Demonstrate that babies understand different words

Multiple Choice

WHAT IS THE MAIN CONCLUSION FROM THE STUDY DESCRIBED IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH?

• Watching videos is a good way to develop a child’s brain.

• Social interaction has a big influence on the brain.

THINGS I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT

THINGS I HAVE FOUND INTERESTING?

WHAT DID I LEARND TODAY?