Some of our best memories as children originate from playing. However, as time goes on, children could be playing less, which could be negatively impacting their mental health. Current researchers are claiming that increases in children’s mental health issues could be at least partially due to a decrease in independent playtime.

While there are other factors that could be contributing to the increase in poor mental health in children, playtime allows children to use their imagination and express themselves. Children with less independent playtime have less time to explore different aspects of the world and who they are.

Read the full article here.

Emma Dineen

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

This article focuses on the language development of Spanish-learning infants who are part of low socioeconomic status families and the parental influences that play a role in this acquisition. Researchers were trying to understand if earlier experience with language was linked to language efficiency processing in infants. Also, a key question was if this early language experience influences later vocabulary knowledge. 

Researchers observed speech accessible to 19 month old infants through audio recording technology. Audio recordings observed child-directed speech as well as overheard speech from the parents. Results showed that the total amount of adult speech recorded varied significantly, with one of the lowest word counts being fewer than 2,000 and the highest almost 29,000. It was also found that children who experienced more child-directed speech earlier at 19 months had larder vocabularies at 24 months. The article gives helpful insight into what sorts of outcomes we see when adults interact verbally with their children and how they contribute to their child’s language acquisition.

Read the full article here!

 

Nolyette Verastegui

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

Sign language is something that is commonly used around the world to connect deaf individuals with individuals who can hear. Sadly, in Nicaragua, there was not always deaf education provided to help teach young children sign language. However, this did not stop the children there from learning how to communicate with the people around them.

Ann Senghas talks on this episode of Radiolabs about how these children developed a language to break the barriers they had once experienced. She evaluated the language they used for over 30 years, and even within this time, was able to witness how much the language changed. Language is something that is so important for development, and it is so impactful to witness how language can come to be even in adverse situations.

To listen to more click here!

Mikayla Clemens

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

Picture this: You are a child receiving a cookie from your parents. Your sibling also receives the sweet treat but cut in half. You become frustrated because you believe that they were given two cookies while you were given a single one, when really, that is not the case. This phenomenon is called conservation, established by psychologist Jean Piaget. 

According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, the preoperational stage of development in children involves cognition errors. Children between the ages of four and seven are said to make conservation errors, not being able to understand that altering a substance’s appearance (like cutting the cookie in half) does not change its basic properties (it being a single cookie). Instead, children in this stage of development focus on centration; focusing their attention on a single characteristic of a situation (the amount of cookies seen) and disregarding others (the cookie being cut in half).

Importantly, children’s developmental milestones differ greatly, and not every child will go through these developmental stages as is stated. However, Piaget’s discovery of the preoperational stage serves as a basis for common logical mistakes made by children aged four to seven.

Read the full article here!

 

Nolyette Verastegui

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

How do we go from running around in diapers freely as infants to dressing appropriately for work as adults? In this TED Talk, Sara Valencia addresses when in development we become sensitive to others evaluations. To investigate this question, Valencia and her team designed a game called “The Robot Task”, which revealed how children modify their behaviors when others are watching. Two toys were presented to the children; one associated with a positive cue from the experimenter and the other with a negative one. The children were then given the freedom to play with the toy while being watched by the experimenter or while the experimenter was turned around. It was thought that if children are sensitive to others evaluations, both of the factors previously mentioned would influence their play. Researchers found that this ability surprisingly develops very early in development.

Watch the full Ted Talk here!

 

Nolyette Verastegui

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

 

As addressed in previous posts, providing children time to go outside and play reaps benefits across multiple domains of a child’s development. It promotes gross motor development, allows kids to use their imagination and creative thinking skills while tackling social development milestones… the list is endless. However, when thinking from an educational standpoint, this idea of an outdoor classroom is not something that is new and has been seen 40,000 years ago!

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19’s sudden switch to online learning, a lot of classrooms have spent less time outside. This has created questions in the benefits of integrating nature into classrooms and whether this new style of education is beneficial or harmful to students. Today’s article brings to light the history behind outdoor classrooms; where we first saw examples of them, how they have changed, and what they look like now post pandemic.

To read more, click here!

Mikayla Clemens

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

Good evening and welcome to Trivia Tuesday! This week’s question dives deeper into the brain…

True or false: during early years of development, children have neurons in their brain which strengthen when stimulated. The synapses that are not stimulated are often weakened and will not develop.

The answer to last week’s question is reflexive smiles and social smiles! Reflexive smiles start to occur as early as 2 weeks and are often in reaction to bodily functions such as gas or even reaching REM sleep. Social smiles start to appear around 6 weeks to 3 months. Babies will often start to smile at familiar faces at around 4 months and will eventually smile in certain situations at around their first birthday!

Tune in next Tuesday to find out the answer to this week’s question!

Sleep is important for everyone. Waking up after a night with a few hours of sleep feels like the worst thing ever. Now imagine your baby not getting enough sleep, that will be even worse for them. A study found that infants, Children, and Adolescents who have not been getting enough sleep will be at risk for health outcomes that will prevent proper development.

It was found that in 2016-2018 one third of children aged 4 months – 17 years old were not getting enough sleep for their age. It was also found that a majority of the children not getting enough sleep were from racial and ethnic minority groups of low socioeconomic status.

This study states that doctors, teachers, and other professionals should advise parents about the importance of sleep for children and support parents in creating an environment where children can get enough sleep

Read more about this topic Here!

Ben Solomon,

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS

Picky eating can be hard to manage and often has a bad reputation, however, this does not necessarily mean it will impact a child’s development. It is common for toddlers to go through a period of picky eating while they are growing, which can be stressful for parents as it may worry them for problems in the future. According to a study, 300 children who identified as picky eaters during toddlerhood were compared to 900 other children that did not. It was found that there was no difference in BMI. A slight difference was found in different nutritional levels such as zinc, iron, and carotene, but it was not at a level of concern over the children’s health.

Though, picky eating may seem like a behavior that may impact a child’s development, it is not anything to truly worry about. Every individual has a different taste, and if a child is getting the nutrients they need in a healthy way, it truly is not something to worry about.

To read more on picky eating, click here!

Mikayla Clemens

Research Assistant, UConn KIDS