Engineering startup aims to lift language skills of underprivileged children

Toronto: A handheld device and “talking stickers” are a University of Toronto startup’s strategy to improve the vocabulary and communication skills of children in impoverished communities. “We wanted to create something that was play-based,” said Aisha Bukhari (ElecE 0T8), a graduate of both U of T Engineering and the Rotman School of Management MBA program, who is also the co-founder of Attollo Social Enterprise, the team behind the innovative solution. “We wanted it to be affordable, scalable and loved by children.”

Parents Mixing Languages has No Impact on Children's Language Development

Maryland: Many adults speak more than one language, and often “mix” those languages when speaking to their children, a practice called “code-switching.” An eye-opening study by researchers in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland has found that this “code-switching” has no impact on children’s language development in their home. The study, “Look at the gato! Code-switching in speech to toddlers” appears in the Journal of Child Language. 

Reading aloud stimulates language development especially in temperamental babies

Leiden: Hearing stories read aloud stimulates language development in all babies from the age of 8 months, but in particular in temperamental babies. This is a finding of Leiden education specialist Heleen van den Berg in her doctoral thesis. PhD defence 19 May.

Why is it difficult to pronounce the unfamiliar sounds in a foreign language?

Munich: A new Emmy Noether Research Group at LMU focuses on how we learn to pronounce the unfamiliar sounds in a foreign language, and why it is often difficult for us to avoid errors in pronunciation that we pounce on when they are made by others. Like all languages, English lays out many snares for the unwary non-native speaker, and Germans regularly fall foul of one in particular, pronunciation of ‘th’. A prominent recent victim was EU commissioner Günther Oettinger, who was often heard to begin his responses to reporters’ questions with the phrase “On ze one händ”. But you don’t have to have an especially high profile in the media to stumble at articulatory hurdles like this, as the majority of those who now use English well know.

Brain’s iconic seat of speech goes silent when we actually talk

Berkeley University. US: For 150 years, the iconic Broca’s area of the brain has been recognized as the command center for human speech, including vocalization. Now, scientists at UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland are challenging this long-held assumption with new evidence that Broca’s area actually switches off when we talk out loud.

Babies' brains could unravel the mystery of stuttering

University of Sydney (Australia) researchers are launching a world-first study to see if it's possible to detect whether a baby will go on to stutter in later life - well before they start to talk.

Creative Minds: A Baby’s Eye View of Language Development

NIH. US: If you are a fan of wildlife shows, you’ve probably seen those tiny video cameras rigged to animals in the wild that provide a sneak peek into their secret domains. But not all research cams are mounted on creatures with fur, feathers, or fins. One of NIH’s 2014 Early Independence Award winners has developed a baby-friendly, head-mounted camera system (shown above) that captures the world from an infant’s perspective and explores one of our most human, but still imperfectly understood, traits: language.