Test Your Brain Power

Below is a grid of 5 letter words.  Each word is missing its first and last letter.  The last letter of each word is the same as the first.  No two words have the same first and last letter as each other.  When read from top to bottom, the missing letters spell another 5 letter word.

What are the missing letters?

Here’s the solution:

Arrange the tiles in the boxes to unscramble a one-liner about sleeping.

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I slept like a baby, I woke up every two hours!

Solve the cryptogram below to find a Franklin P. Jones quote about language.

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It’s a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water.

In the puzzle below, the letters that belong in each column are scrambled below it.  Put the letters in the correct order, and you will get a quote from Dr. Carl Sagan about the brain and thinking.

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The brain is like a muscle.  When we think well, we feel good.  Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.

The following scramble puzzle is based on the Language Development entry.  Unscramble each word and then unscramble the letters in the circles to fill in the following blank: As language is acquired, _______________ develops before the ability speak or write.

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Word List: Verbal, Written, Gestures, Speech, Anticipation, Copying, Repetitive, Reading, Demonstrate

Final Word: Comprehension

Humans communicate through language, the set of rules that people share in order to communicate.  Speech, the written word, and gestures are all methods of using language in order to communicate.  Language does not develop on its own in children, it has to be taught.  While the ability to communicate is present at birth, there are stages that children go through in order to develop language.

At birth an infant is able to communicate on a very rudimentary level.  Either everything is fine and the infant is quiet, or something is wrong and the infant cries.  As time goes by, the cries become more refined and parents can usually tell if the infant’s cry means that the baby is hungry, tired, or needs a diaper change.  Laughter and cooing develop next.  By 6 months of age, most babies can babble with intonation, mimicking the speech they hear around them.  The more a baby is spoken to, the more intonation the baby will use in his/her own babblings.

Babies understand language before they can use it themselves.  Around 6 months of age, a baby will recognize his/her name.  By 12 months, most babies are able to follow simple commands like “show me your nose” or “give me the bear.”  The ability to anticipate, which is part of the development of understanding language,  develops between 6 and 12 months of age also.  If repetitive games like peek-a-boo or “This Little Piggy” are played frequently, the baby will learn what to expect when the game is started and may even find ways of requesting the game to be played.  This development of language reception is repeated when the child learns to read and write.  Children are able to recognize words like their names, and simple common items before they are able to write them.

Babies learn by copying the sounds they are hearing around them.  An important part of language development is hearing the sounds they make repeated back to them.  If your baby babbles “ba ba ba” to you, repeat it back.  This demonstrates the give and take of language to the baby.  While copying a baby’s babbling is important, it is equally important to speak regularly to babies.  A baby’s language will progress much slower if all the baby ever hears is cooing and babbling, it gives the baby nothing to copy.

Many children say their first word at around 12 months and by 18 months have a vocabulary of up to 20 words.  A baby’s first words are ones that they hear frequently and will help meet their wants and needs.  By 24 months, most children have a vocabulary of as many as 200 words and are beginning to combine words to form more complex thoughts.  Instead of just saying “juice” when they want a drink, they will say “want juice” or “give juice” to express the thought more precisely.  At 24 months of age is when many children begin to use pronouns correctly, particularly I and me.  Of course, it helps for children to hear language used properly in order to be able to use it correctly themselves.

As children get older, the more sophisticated language they hear, the more sophisticated their language will become.  Reading also plays a large part in language development in school age children.  Reading a wide variety of books exposes children to a wide range of uses of language and may introduce new words they might not have learned otherwise.  Starting to read to children when they are babies is the best way to engender a love of reading and demonstrate its importance.

There are many things parents can do to help their children develop language.

Birth to 2 Years

• ~Teach your baby to imitate clapping hands, throwing kisses, and playing games like pat-a-cake, peek-a-boo, and the itsy-bitsy-spider.
• ~Explain what you are doing as you complete everyday tasks like bathing, feeding, and dressing your baby.
• ~Identify colors and common items.
• ~Acknowledge and encourage attempts to communicate.
• ~When your baby uses a single word, expand on it, if your baby says “milk,” say “would you like some milk?”

2 Years to 4 Years

• ~Show understanding of what your child is saying by repeating and expanding on what your child has said.
• ~Ask questions that offer a choice. “Do you want juice or milk?” “Do you like dogs or cats?”
• ~Expand your child’s existing vocabulary by identifying body parts or common items, and identifying what you do with them.
• ~Use photographs of familiar people and places, and have your child help retell what was happening when the picture was taken.

4 Years to 6 Years

• ~Whenever possible give your full attention when your child starts a conversation.
• ~Acknowledge, encourage, and praise correct grammar and proper use of language.
• ~Ask open ended questions that require a response of more than one or two words.
• ~Give your child two- and three-step directions: “Get the toy and put it on the shelf.”
• ~When reading or watching TV, have your child make predictions about what will happen next.
• ~Use everyday activities, like shopping, to have your child use comparative words like heavier, lighter, bigger, smaller.

It is important to remember that when it comes to language development, each child learns and develops at their own pace.  What is more important than reaching milestones by certain ages, is whether the progress is made at a steady pace.  If you have any concerns, discuss them with your pediatrician.

Below is a quote about education by William Butler Yeats.  Arrange the tiles in the boxes to unscramble the quote.

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Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Here is a puzzle based on yesterday’s post, Effects of Pregnancy on the Brain.  Unscramble the word or words in each line.  Then unscramble the letters in the circles to find one of the names used for the effects pregnancy has on the brain.

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