Do you wish you could see the world through your toddlers’ eyes? What would it look like? The under side of chairs? People’s knees?
Because toddler learning depends on what they see, Chen Yu and I are trying to address this question by putting tiny video cameras low on the forehead of toddlers as they play and interact with others and with objects. This work, supported by the National Science Foundation and by the National Institutes of Health has led to a renewed interest in hands in learning. Although toddlers certainly do see lots of knees and leaning down faces, the most remarkable aspect of these new findings are about hands. Children spend a lot of time looking at hands –their own hands and their parents’ hands, as they hold and turn objects, point and gesture. Below are pictures from the child’s head camera (top) and pictures –from the same instance of time – from the parent’s view of the interaction. You can see the tiny camera on a sports band and the children wear white smocks so that the toys and faces and hands are easy for the computer to find in the images. Also, we have colored our young scientists faces since they might not be ready for the fame this blog would bring.
Top: What the child sees. Bottom: What the parent sees.
The three pictures from the children’s head cameras are highly typical –hands, hands, hands. This is potentially very important for understanding learning –about objects, about words, about collaboration. Developmental scientists already know about the importance of gestures and how they help children learn –at home and at school. How hands move also provide information about cause and effect (did he drop it by accident or throw it on purpose?). And what toddlers do with their hands – as they move and use objects – provides them with new information, little experiments on the world.
Scientists are very excited about what these head-camera views might tell us about toddler learning and also about how the early atypical patterns of viewing of the world that may characterize children with autism spectrum disorders may play a role in their development.
If you want to read more, go to: http://www.indiana.edu/~cogdev/papers.html
Are you interested in participating in research studies with your child? Infant and child scientists, birth through 6 years old, are always needed in the child development labs at the IU Psychological and Brain Sciences department. Visit and register your child on our website at http://www.indiana.edu/~cogdev/ or call 855-8256 (ask for Char). We welcome you to our lab!
