Normal activities like laughing at their favorite cartoon character, or crying when they're hungry, or pointing at pictures on a book, or babbling away at their toys are being observed by scientists in an effort to gain more insight into how the human brain develops during childhood. Researchers from the Kansas University is studying Brain development in babies saying that the data obtained from this type of study could hold the key to understanding how children develop their language skills.
The members of the research team at Kansas University have long been leaders when it comes to studying early cognitive development. The KU Baby Lab was established in 1970 by former KU professor, Prof. Francis Horowitz, and two more have been established since then. The researchers who are involved in this type of study say that their work has become very important especially with the rise in the diagnosis of the autism spectrum disorder.
Prof. John Colombo, Director of the Kansas University Scheifelbusch Institution for Life Span Studies said that, "This has been a long-standing historical strength for the university, and we are carrying on that tradition." Prof. Colombo is co-founder of one of the other baby labs during the 1980s.
With the current study, scientists at that KU Medical Center facility are trying to measure and understand an infant's attention process within social situations. Prof. Brenda Salley from the research team said that, "We think that a child who may be more sophisticated in their attention to people may acquire language quicker than other children, in part because they may have more language learning opportunities but also because something about that social information is particularly impactful for language development."
At the moment, the first phase of studying language development is about finished, and the second phase will begin shortly. The second phase is a three-year study of children who show signs of developmental delay.