Babies grasp word meanings even before they can talk

Babies develop a far better understanding of language even before they can speak to us in words, according to a study. 

"Even though there are not many overt signals of language knowledge in babies, language is definitely developing furiously under the surface," said an assistant professor. 

The study,  used eye- tracking software to show that babies also recognise that the meanings of some words, such as car and stroller, are more alike than others, like car and juice. 

By analysing home recordings, the team found that babies word knowledge correlated with the proportion of time they heard people talking about objects in their immediate surroundings. 

"Even in the very early stages of comprehension, babies seem to know something about how words relate to each other," Prof. said. 

"And already by six months, measurable aspects of their home environment predict how much of this early level of knowledge they have. 

"There are clear follow-ups for potential intervention work with children who might be at-risk for language delays or deficits," said the Prof. 

To gauge word comprehension, the Prof. invited babies and their caregivers into a lab equipped with a computer screen and few other infant distractions. 

The babies were shown pairs of images that were related, like a foot and a hand, or unrelated, like a foot and a carton of milk. 

For each pair, the caregiver (who could not see the screen) was prompted to name one of the images while an eye- tracking device followed the babys gaze. 

The Prof. found that babies spent more time looking at the image that was named when the two images were unrelated than when they were related. 

"They may not know the full-fledged adult meaning of a word, but they seem to recognise that there is something more similar about the meaning of these words than those words," he said. 

The Prof. then wanted to investigate how babies performance in the lab might be linked to the speech they hear at home. 

"It turned out that the proportion of the time that parents talked about something when it was actually there to be seen and learned from co-related with the babies overall comprehension," Prof. said.

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Blood vessels in eye may determine IQ !

Eyes may be window to brain health!

The width of blood vessels in the retina, located at the back 

of the eye, may indicate brain health years before the onset 

of dementia and other deficits, according to a new study.

Some researchers have wondered whether intelligence 

might serve as a marker indicating the health of the brain, 

and specifically the health of the system of blood vessels that 

provides oxygen and nutrients to the brain.

Researchers used digital retinal imaging, a relatively new 

and non-invasive method, to gain a window onto vascular 

conditions in the brain by looking at the small blood vessels 

of the retina, located at the back of the eye.

Retinal blood vessels share similar size, structure, and 

function with blood vessels in the brain and can provide a 

way of examining brain health in living humans.

Having wider retinal venules was linked with lower IQ 

scores at age 38, even after the researchers accounted for 

various health, lifestyle, and environmental risk factors that 

might have played a role.

Individuals who had wider retinal venules showed evidence 

of general cognitive deficits, with lower scores on numerous 

measures of neuro-psychological functioning, including 

verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working 

memory, and executive function.

Surprisingly, the data revealed that people who had wider 

venules at age 38 also had lower IQ in childhood, a full 25 

years earlier.

It's "remarkable that venular calibre in the eye is related, 

however modestly, to mental test scores of individuals in 

their 30s, and even to IQ scores in childhood," the 

researchers said.

The findings suggest that the processes linking vascular 

health and cognitive functioning begin much earlier than 

previously assumed, years before the onset of dementia and 

other age-related declines in brain functioning.

"Increasing knowledge about retinal vessels may enable 

scientists to develop better diagnosis and treatments to 

increase the levels of oxygen into the brain and by that, to 

prevent age-related worsening of cognitive abilities," 

researchers said.