[00:00.00]Listen to part of a lecture in a psychology class.
[00:04.22]Professor: Okay. Let's begin with a quick review. [00:07.73]We've covered different aspects of preverbal development in infants, like when they're making random emotions and sounds or recognizing voices or beginning to discriminate between different sounds. [00:20.51]But with everything we've talked about so far, the babies mostly reacting to what its caregiver does. [00:27.72]And aside from expressing expressing basic needs, baby really isn't initiating communication.
[00:35.65]So today we'll see how babies start to become active partners with their caregivers. [00:42.08]For the first 7 or 8 months, the baby responds to stimuli, but we don't see intentional attempts to communicate. [00:51.07]What I mean is part from their immediate needs. [00:54.71]Babies don't communicate anything about the world around them. [00:58.77]Then typically, at about 9 months old, the baby enters a new an important stage in normal, communicative development, and will begin to engage with others as an active participant. [01:14.17]And this is essential for real intentional communication.
[01:18.83]To understand what's going on here. [01:21.29]Let's look at something called joint attention. [01:25.47]So the ability to share a focus of attention with someone else that's joint attention. [01:34.69]Two or more people have connected awareness of the same thing. [01:40.07]And in just a few minutes, well watch a video about babies beginning to use this vital skill. [01:47.18]We'll see how using joint attention begins to lead towards intentional communication. [01:55.33]But where does an infant learn this skill?
[01:58.56]Well. from its adult caregiver, the infant begins to follow the gaze of the adult, try to see what the adult is focusing attention on and to share with the adult, the experience of looking at this object.
[02:13.63]Babies may do this for several months and by looking back and forth between the object of focus and the caregiver, the baby is able to coordinate eye contact and a focal point with someone else.
[02:27.34]First, by just following the caregivers gaze, and later at around 9 months or so, by making sounds or using gestures like like pointing at what they’re both looking at. [02:40.41]And here, it becomes apparent that the infant is intentionally trying to communicate its desires and interests. [02:49.91]This is a big breakthrough in the infants life, because now it's not just the adult directing the baby's attention. [02:58.68]The baby has learned to deliberately tracked and direct the adult's attention. [03:04.55]Like when a baby sees a cat and and appoints to it while looking at the at caregiver to try to get the caregiver to look at it, too.
[03:13.48]Another example, when my niece wants a toy that's out of reach, she looks her dad in the eyes, makes a noise and points to the toy. [03:23.39]I don't have to imagine my family. [03:26.20]This isn't something particular to my niece. [03:28.50]And by the way, these are considered to be two distinct types of pointing. [03:35.30]The infant either points to request something like a toy, or points to share something like the interesting cat walking past. [03:45.03]And another thing, the skill of joint attention is extremely important in building vocabulary, because it helps infants to see and understand what others are talking about. [03:59.97]Think about it. How can you learn new words unless you understand what the speakers are referring to? [04:08.83]The adults words would would be just sounds with no meaning. [04:12.83]So when the child hears an adult, say a new word, it can learn the meaning of this vocabulary by matching the language with whatever they both looking at. [04:22.92]That is the focus of their joint attention. [04:25.75]And when the infant itself begins to control their joint attention to point and in effect, to get the adult to name things, well, as you might guess, vocabulary learning increases dramatically.
[04:39.38]Okay, So over the next 2 weeks, we'll see what happens when infants begin to control joint attention. [04:46.90]This will give you insights into everything from language development and infants to their social and emotional development and help you understand how to create the best possible learning environments for them, and also to support children who have developmental problems or disabilities, all right. [05:06.42]Now, for that video of some infants who haven't yet learned to make active use of joint attention along with some who have this video really captures the differences. [05:19.78]Some of you may want to do your semester project on how infants actively use the skill, joint attention. [05:26.15]So notice the kinds of situations the researchers in the video make use of, to get the infants to demonstrate their joint attention skills that might prove helpful for when you yourselves work with the group of infants in your project.
托福14天冲刺微信战团