The Complex Minds of Babies

Posted on August 11, 2005

An interesting article appearing in Newsweek explains how researchers are studying babies subtle behaviors and discovering that babies develop complex emotions and skills much earlier than originally thought. They also discovered that these early emotions and social skills can have a big impact on future development. For example, the researchers believe that babies learn "gaze following" by 10 to 11 months and that it might have a lot to do with language learning.

In their study, babies who weren't proficient at gaze-following by their first birthday had much less advanced-language skills at 2. Meltzoff says this helps explain why language occurs more slowly in blind children, as well as children of depressed mothers, who tend not to interact as much with their babies.

Scientists hope that the research can be used to diagnose learning problems very early in childhood. Newsweek also provides this useful chart that shows the development of a child's emotional and social skills by age level from 3 months to 18 months.

THE MIND