For a baby’s brain to benefit, read the right books at the right time
theconversation.com
theconversation.com
The researchers are rash to think that an effect observed after three months have passed will still be observable after five years or twenty. The psychological literature is full of examples of interventions that raise intelligence in the short term and have no long-term effect [1]. To date, I'm not aware of any childhood intervention (aside from adequate nutrition) that has an appreciable effect on adult intelligence.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284123208_The_envir...
I'm not sure how much better than that you might expect to get, given the amount of effort and money involved in conducting this kind of study for even a small sample size.
Also Iodine-deficiency, though not sure that's covered by nutrition since it's now added to salt.
People seem very attached to the "you can't do anything" approach though. I find it hard to imagine what a society without education would look like though, even if the people all had high IQs, so presumably there's some benefit to passing knowledge onto the next generation?
Contra what you say, people (really, the liberal elite consensi) seem very attached to the "anyone can do anything" approach, but, once you avoid the obvious stuff and give kids enough food, it is simply not the case: raw genetics is responsible for 50-80% of adult intelligence. This is not a popular position, despite the ample evidence, and will get you thrown out of most sociology departments today.
Educational institutions are, generally, an effect of high societal intelligence, rather than a cause.
But even in the developed world (well, the US at least), the poor very often do not live in a non-disastrous environment, so if that is what you assume, your assumption is flawed.
But, if we are serious about the problem, we need to be honest about the large genetic basis of adult intelligence and then figure out how to humanely encourage eugenic reproductive patterns (or at least discourage dysgenic ones) in the poor.
If the problem you are concerned about is "people with a low adult IQ exist" rather than "people are unfairly obstructed by social conditions from realizing their potential", yes, eugenics would seem to be an important part of the solution.
But for many people, the problem is not which people exist, but the degree to which we harm the potential of certain of the people who do exist.
I would bet that we could agree on many social programs to help the poor. Where we probably disagree is on the amount that we think these programs would help fix the long term problem of poverty, and I might be more inclined to look to see if the program has dysgenic effects that would compound that long-term problem.
That's simply wrong; lots of environmental factors beyond nutrition (including pre- and peri-natal environmental factors, as well as post-natal environmental factors) are known which have significant effects on intelligence.
As well as the disease and toxic exposure factors discussed by other responses, this includes things like prenatal maternal stress, and childhood exposure to violence and experience of psychological trauma.
If you agree that we shouldn't expect to do "much better" than 36% being arrested 5 times, 35% not graduating high school and 40% having a job earning less than $20k/year, then you probably agree w/ the parent commenter.
http://library.intellectualtakeout.org/sites/default/files/P...
My criticism of that statistic would be different. Ones that are structured like "X% reduction in Y happening more than threshold level Z" smell of p-hacking. A simple "Gets arrested X fewer times (p=0.15)" is more trustworthy to me than "X% less likely to get arrested more than 5 times (p = 0.03)".
When I was younger my parents gave me a lot of space to explore things I’m interested in, not like most of the folks I know in my folks’ social circle. The problem is when I was younger (middle/high school) I really did not have the discipline to explore my interests fully in a way that would appeal to admissions committees and learned very little about a wide range of subjects that aren’t particularly useful - I wasted at least 5 years of my adolescence like this. Overall it wasn’t bad but I feel like I would have been better off had I been given (and more importantly requested/accepted) more guidance with regard to career and educational/learning opportunities. By the time I got to college I was years behind my peers at top institutions, honestly not sure if I can catch up.
... is a race to the bottom.
I do have sympathy for the position of coveting others financial success, I struggle with that a lot; but I had a highly structured education and was very successful in compulsory education.
You are mixing up money with success. I do think you know some successful people, you just not realising, who they are.
My friends are successful because they have time. I am stuck working 60 hours a week to make sure I can provide for my family. My counterparts, all with this structured background, work tiny amounts of hours and have 3x as much moneys as I do.
One of my biggest failures is the lack of structure bled into my studies when I needed my studies to propel me forward. These kids did all the same fun things as me, but played a couple less video games (experiences I have forgotten) and took far less time reading Digg.com and Reddit (Yet know just as much as I do about news).
Now, they have propelled so far ahead because the additional time they have has given them it. They get to spend more time with their children. They get to watch every soccer game. They own boats, live on lakes, and spend 6-10 weeks a year vacationing. I can barely vacation because I neither have the time or the money to be able to do so.
Exactly, I have the same regret
I could see of difference between the two of us, because of the huge difference in schooling & educational curricula. He may turn out to be a fantastic Engineer. Have a lot of catching up to do.
Being deliberate in what you read to them and when doesn't preclude also giving them love, food, shelter, space and everything else you listed. If there's a significant difference to be realized by adopting these reading habits (I'm not saying there is) one could argue you're ethically obligated to do so. In the same way that not supplying your child with a balanced diet could be considered negligent.
Children also need parents that are confident in their parenting skills. Parenting is something you do 100% of the time. Being insecure because of a constant barrage of scientific studies micro-correcting your skills will harm your child’s upbringing.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Don’t judge parents who read every day, but maybe not the scientifically perfect book. Judge the parent that never reads at all.
The experimental results were that reading books with named characters resulted in increased attention to those characters. Is paying more attention to storybook characters a skill you want your child to develop? Maybe? What if further research showed that those same infants showed less attention to their parents? Or that they had stronger verbal skills, but weaker mathematical skills? Would you still consider this "the best" for your child? (These actually would be interesting follow-up studies to do, but I doubt any parent would be able to consider all the relevant results together.)
My dad very much wanted "the best" for me, and as a nuclear chemist, he taught me math and science from a very early age. I got some leverage out of the math skills, but this generation happens to be a singularly shitty time to be a scientist, and it turns out that for skills that are valued by the market at this point in history (selling software, for example), things like emotional intelligence and social skills are actually quite a bit more helpful. Being a math prodigy is far less valuable than knowing when someone's trying to take advantage of you, but I suspect the former is desired by a lot more parents.
Many times, experience or external fomo/fud from the environment point towards something that is no longer as optimized as while this experience or viewpoint has been coagulating. Parents should be aware of that.
You always want the best for your children and often you have to remind yourself that maybe the best is just doing less.
In hindsight I now am surprised what my parents let me do on my own at very young age. Imagining giving my son this degree of freedom is a little scary I have to admit but I will try my best.
I am also a strong believer that happiness and success are very loosely connected at best.
Similarly, around the camp fire, "that's hot, it'll burn you [signs for hot and sore-hand]" but he, 16mo, was determined not to keep his hand away from the fire. A minor burn hurts like billy-o, but next time I know he'll keep his hands back from the fire!
I realize that it would have been hard to measure attentive engagement if they had used more visually distinctive and rich graphics like cartoonish or photographic animals, but the randomly-generated pink/green blob shapes are so bad as to undermine the whole thing.
(In case it's not clear, I mean only pretend to play with your baby now, while putting that time into improving your career secretly, as I have described.)
[1] I assume you're a programmer, if not, read a read a book on Javascript instead
My early memories are a bit hazy, but I still remember my father explaining to me the similarity between a rotating wheel and the vibration of a spring. I'm not sure what explanation he actually gave, but it might have involved gestures.
So you probably shouldn't expect your children to understand and remember everything you tell them, but random bits and pieces might stick to resurface later in the process of learning them "properly".
This was the early 1980s, I had never seen a computer in my life, but possibly on TV. Not surprisingly I was intrigued by a Basic-manual when I was 9 and started writing small programs.
I definitely had some drive toward... something intellectual? A very vague feeling but I know for sure my brain was already influenced in my fourth year in some way to make me like "data", and reading.
I think people worry too much about reading, honestly.
I’ve watched my toddler spend time taking his toys apart and put them together or play with the magnets on his toy trains, and I think time spent exploring the world is just as valuable. He likes to read, too, don’t get me wrong, but there’s more to education than books.
Do people really interact with their kids when the child is playing on a tablet; my observation is that the contrary is the case. The tablet is given to "shut up" the child and avoid interacting with them.
That aside: I've increasingly come to understand the urgent need for public libraries for young families. The children's room in your average US public library is probably the most used and most important room in the building, just as a way to provide everyone with access to diverse reading material -- both for your child's sanity, and your own.
The noun becomes a contextual nickname or way to address them. Compare:
For baby's brain, do X.
For mommy's sanity, do Y.
So it's:
"For [a] baby's brain, do X"
and
"For Mommy's sanity, do Y."
or
"For a mother's sanity, do Y."
I think this is what you're missing: "baby" is indeed becoming / has become just such a nickname. It is used the same as "mommy" (or more often in my experience, "mama") by most folks involved in pre- and postnatal care. I don't think it is actually shorthand for "a baby" or "the baby", but rather for "your baby" (that is: it is more intimate). It's just stylistic (like all slang).
My folks were more in the Tom Clancy, Louis L'Amour and Stephen King era of pulps, but without those lifelines of more engaging content during the wasteland years of dreck that was pushed 3rd-10th grade...