Cornell researchers are working with Head Start Centers and day schools in New York City on early-intervention work to promote development of spatial skills and language acquisition in preschoolers.
Marianella Casasola, associate professor of human development and a faculty fellow of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research in Cornell's College of Human Ecology, said studies show those with better spatial skills are more likely to flourish in STEM fields.
[...] "Children who both interacted and were narrated to saw at least a 30 percent increase in spatial gains over the group that still interacted with the same sorts of activities and games, but did not have language incorporated into their play by an adult," she said. "Both groups improved, but those who heard items being labeled and actions described showed significantly greater gains."
Talking to your kids while they do spatial activities makes them 30% better at developing the spatial awareness fundamental to success in STEM subjects. Guess the twinkies + video games method has lost currency, then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @02:04PM (4 children)
Social interaction with social creature makes creature better at being social creature. More, right after these social influencing messages from our social funders.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 03 2017, @02:56PM (3 children)
You kinda missed something there. It isn't exactly "social creatures" we want to create here. The article is about academics, and more specifically, STEM academics. Every rugrat in the world grows up to be more or less social. We don't need more social creatures. We already have to many talking heads, blathering on and on, about subjects of which they have no knowledge.
Talking to the kids, labeling, naming, and descriptions tends to make them more STEM oriented. As opposed to empty-headed baby talk such as you hear many parents using with their children. Such children tend to grow up being vacuous, rather than STEM oriented.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 03 2017, @05:41PM (1 child)
Don't read too much into it.
Nothing about STEM was studied. That was just thrown in, perhaps by a journalist.
All they studied was some approximation of spatial skills and language acquisition in preschoolers.
Did the kid turn its head toward the sound of mom's voice? Could they find the cookie under teddy bear?
Could they do these things faster with mamma's coaching? Bingo we have a winner!!!
Rocket Science is not guaranteed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 04 2017, @03:14AM
RTFS:
The kids who were narrated to performed 30% better on spatial awareness, and those with better spatial skills are more likely to flourish in STEM fields, according to the professor. But then, maybe researchers at Cornell are a bunch of hacks.
I have taken both my kids to be guinea pigs for studies like these at NYU's Center for Early Childhood Health and Development and the researchers there seemed pretty solid to me, running the kids through spatial tasks, obstacle courses, and such while wearing electrodes and head gear with eye-tracking cameras and accelerometers to chart their motor response. If the Cornell guys are at least that good I think they deserve more consideration than the original AC did.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 04 2017, @03:54PM
You're right, but there's a bias here that wasn't mentioned in the summary: how were the spatial skills tested? What amount of language/labeling was required to get a good score on the test?
If it's a STEM spatial skills test that essentially is testing vocabulary and labeling, then it's not surprising that being bombarded with the vocabulary and labeling will help children do well, even if they don't understand the concepts. Meanwhile, the ones that weren't being bombarded with verbal information _might_ have had more opportunity to interact with and develop understanding of the underlying concepts - even if they couldn't do as well with the vocabulary and labeling test.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @02:15PM (27 children)
What a spin this shit is. I'm sure it was my parents talking to me (never happened) that were responsible for my success in STEM and not the fucking thousands of hours I spent alone tinkering with computer and electronics while other kids were outside playing together.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 03 2017, @02:23PM (7 children)
I have to agree with this. I wasn't encouraged to go into STEM much at all; my mom wanted me to become a banker (!) actually. (She had no background in it, I'm sure she just liked the idea because she likes money and associates bankers with money.) But she did buy me a microcomputer at a young age, mainly because I really wanted one, and that helped put me on this path I sure as hell didn't have anyone in my early life encouraging me to be an engineer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @04:19PM (6 children)
And aren't you regretting it sometimes?
Come on, admit it; Runaway may have a point [soylentnews.org] with his "coke snorting rock star".
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 03 2017, @07:14PM (5 children)
And aren't you regretting it sometimes?
I wish someone had told me about the open-office plans that would become all the range starting in the 2000s. Engineering and programming are not good careers for introverts or anyone who needs quiet so they can focus and concentrate. They used to be, but not any more. I think this needs to be publicized more, so that only very outgoing and highly social kids are encouraged to go into STEM careers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @10:04PM (1 child)
Don't worry, tech companies don't hire introverts. Nerds just don't get jobs anywhere. And as they starve to death in the gutter, they wonder, why the fuck did I study STEM? The only option is suicide.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @01:55AM
Pretty much. Lately I've been wondering why I didn't follow GP's mother's advice and become a banker. Seems you can either have a steady job or a good paying job with STEM. Pick any two. I went with steady, and every time I look at my car, I wonder why I didn't become a banker. There's a wealthy neighborhood I pass though on the way to work. Again I wonder, why didn't I become a banker? Or plumber? Or machinist? Or anything that didn't involve STEM?
For me, it's not just that the pay is mediocre, but that it's very clear that my profession has about zero respect. Nobody can understand why they can't do what I do after an hour of code and assume I've somehow needlessly overcomplicated my job. Nobody wonders why they can't be a banker after an hour of finance, and nobody wonders why they can't be a machinist after an hour of shop. We have a nurse shortage, and I see no hour of patient care, no massive media narrative, no 3 week boot camps, convincing everybody they can be a fully-qualified nurse with a modicum of effort.
For that matter, where is the narrative against doctors with weekly media bonanzas about some doctor caught being abusive to his nurse? Not only would this achieve feminist goals, but it would help the nursing profession to start asking why men don't become nurses, a career that can be very high-paying, up there with banker, plumber, and machinist. As I understand it, the nursing and caregiving professions are concerned about attracting men, but the media has no bullhorn to offer them, which is why so many people believe that nobody's concerned about male nurses. Nurses are, but no bullhorn.
(And no, not all nurses all. Some are downright vicious to men who enter the profession. When a man in a STEM career is less than polite, we hear about it for a week in the media. Women nurses chasing men out of the profession? The media can't help. Feminism doesn't give a shit.)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 04 2017, @02:01AM (2 children)
Eventually the consequences of unfocused extroverts with no substance will show..
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 04 2017, @02:23PM (1 child)
If you're talking about long-term consequences on a national scale, why should I give a shit? It's not any one person's job to sacrifice their life or happiness to make up for a culture's shortcomings. If a culture doesn't value a certain profession, it should naturally suffer the consequences of this.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday August 05 2017, @12:53AM
I simply points out that systems without substance will implode given time.
Perhaps more important is to not contribute to such organizations.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @02:38PM
You were tinkering with computers and electronics in preschool?
Maybe, just maybe, children at different ages have different needs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @02:49PM (5 children)
Maybe you would be better at your chosen field if you had received more guidance early on.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 03 2017, @03:00PM (4 children)
"chosen field"
I think it necessary to characterize his story more accurately. He wanted a microcomputer, and his mother enabled him by supplying the gateway drug, that later led to his addiction with STEM. When I read his comment, I got the impression that he is hopelessly trapped in his self destructive lifestyle. Hell, he might have been a coke sniffing rock star if his momma hadn't enabled him with that computer!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday August 03 2017, @05:48PM (3 children)
Mom gave him what kept him quiet and happy.
She notices that he would rather stack blocks than chew on the nerf football.
There's a lot more of the child's choices going on at an early age then most people think.
This is something totally lost on single child parents.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @10:10PM
Incest is best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @05:19AM (1 child)
Why is that? As the parent of a single child, I respect and encourage choices all the time, knowing that making choices is the most important thing in life. That's the opposite of my own parents who had several kids and were super controlling to all of us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @08:55AM
Not just that choices are available to be make, but that children very distinctly want to make different choices. It isn't random. It isn't the environment. Kids have different personality from day 1.
Also, your kids manipulate you. They are evolved to do so, ensuring survival, so they are exceptionally good at it. You won't even notice the full extent of it.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @02:52PM (4 children)
You say you're "successful in STEM" but apparently you don't understand how science works. Lemme guess you're a computer guy...
If you have some actual critique of the study, please enlighten us. Otherwise feel free to keep your anecdotes to yourself, thank you.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @03:01PM
and maybe you should suck a huge horse cocka
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @04:30PM (2 children)
The "very smart" people here really REALLY dislike when their personal theories are shot down. They did it on their own! Self-created genius didn't need nobody! They learned computers and the average PhD can't hope to match their skills (because they were busy learning other stuff...) so of COURSE you get modded flamebait.
Computer techies (myself included) need to remember they aren't the smartest people ever, and those that chose to focus on becoming experts in their tech field need to realize that doesn't automatically translate into amazing scientific insight. The number of times I have seen techies expounding on any given topic like the answer is obvious is TOO DAMN HIGH!
Prepare to get knocked off your snowflake train when you babble in an obviously stupid manner. In this case, tinkering with computers to be a self-taught expert is not equivalent to preschool age learning. Kids are often treated as idiots, and while they may not understand the advanced topics you talk to them about their brains will be working very hard to understand. That effort creates neural connections and jump starts advanced thinking instead of letting them cruise for the first 4 years of their lives on super easy TV mode.
This site is full of smart people, but many of them have zero clue about their own limitations.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 03 2017, @07:19PM
I know it's hard to hear but this is actually pretty insightful... The people modding this down would have spent that time better with a moment of self-reflection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @02:14AM
Heh. I know that I'm not the smartest person. I've been realizing I'm probably barely qualified to post here, intelligence-wise.
Would you please let my co-workers know that? I gave up on telling them that I wasn't smart, just experienced years ago. They can believe whatever they need to believe to understand why they can't do what I do after an hour of code.
Of course, I've dealt with enough nasty feminists who were smart, or at least I'd thought they were smart before they turned on me, but had different theories about why the hour of code can't give a woman the level of skill I have. When you're stuck between genders, physiologically, but disagree with the gender assigned at birth, and have suffered past abuse because of that gender assignment, that really does things to your head.
Might make you want to believe that there are lizard people out there and hope they can take you away from this awful place rather than resign oneself to the fate that besides body parts, one is a man to the world like it or not, not because that's what anybody thinks when they first see me, but because I don't have the resources to make a clean break with my male identity.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @04:28PM (5 children)
Now think a bit: if your mother talked to you and labelled things and explained you how a shift register and a counter works and how the microprocessor and the other devices communicate over a bus and why SCSI-HDDs were so much faster than ISA ones... maybe you'd have had time to go outside and play together with the other kids.
And perhaps you'd be married and with a mortgage by now instead of living in her basement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @04:38PM (2 children)
Cause marriage and mortgage are the end-goal of every human being, mmhmmmm. All I had to do was ask the question and I could be in your idealized "spot" in life. I'm so glad I didn't, but that's just me.
So many people go through life doing what is expected of them that they never consider if its something they actually want. Then they hit their 40s/50s and freak out when marriage/kids/house suddenly feels hollow. Nothing wrong with those things, but I feel like with the population level we have now a lot of people that aren't ready for / don't want kids should be encouraged to take the single / no kids route.
Now OP was a bit stupid for blowing right past the article's premise, and ignorant to apply his/her life outcome as some sort of counter-proof to the articles results. However, that doesn't make it reasonable to apply personal insults.
(Score: 1, Troll) by frojack on Thursday August 03 2017, @05:52PM (1 child)
NO, AC, clearly YOU are happy in that basement listening to the pitter patter of your mon's feet over head, preparing your lunch. You've found your nirvana.
Mortgages are paid off. Basement dwellers only hope is Mom dies and leaves them the house.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @07:29PM
Heh, well nice of you to chime in and remind everyone that you are indeed a douche nozzle. It happens to be the nastiest part of the douche.
And in case you think I'm raging about your basement comments, I live on my own thank you very much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @08:06PM (1 child)
I doubt it. No one even told me what a computer is, but the second I saw one I knew it was my life's calling, I was about 5 and did't even know what it did (if anything).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 04 2017, @02:22AM
Same here. You have to have interest in it. You can't learn it otherwise, and you certainly can't get it right otherwise.
Observe the effort the media is putting into trying to find the one weird old trick to churn STEM workers off an assembly line, while browbeating existing STEM workers and holding them accountable for the CxO class' sexual harassment of women.
We have an actual nurse and caregiver shortage, and the media is worried about preparing an entire generation for a career of being outsourced to other side of the planet.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 03 2017, @05:59PM
Apparently you never mastered the "S" bit or else you'd understand that your singular anecdote is not data.
AKA don't commit the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @11:55PM
Interaction with a minor is only allowed by government designated caretakers.
Report anyone who isn't a caretaker to authorities.
Remember, children are our future, and have a safe day citizen.