14 ms·

For a baby’s brain to benefit, read the right books at the right time

123 points by rhema 9y ago

hprotagonist 9y ago
(petty quibble: one of the weird grammatical quirks I really loathe is the use of "baby" as a singular proper noun. "For the baby's brain..." or "For a baby's brain.." are both perfectly fine ways to start a sentence, but the article-dropping form is everywhere on parent blogs and it drives me up the wall in ways I had not expected. ) That aside: I've increasingly come to understand the urgent need for public libraries for young families. The children's room in your average US public library is probably the most used and most important room in the building, just as a way to provide everyone with access to diverse reading material -- both for your child's sanity, and your own.
- dang 9y ago
  Have an 'a'. Annoyance reduction at your service.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- HorizonXP 9y ago
  I think public libraries are the single best investment any municipality can make in its children. I frequented mine very often from age 4 to 12, dropping off due to advent of the Internet. Even then, I was there often enough through high school. It’s the best way to ensure free and open access to information.
  - sandos 9y ago
    I frequently loaned books abount electronics and programming when I was 10-15 years old, and I try to take my kids to the library every now and then. I worry libraries will barely exist when they are 15 but the libraries seem popular, at least with smaller kids where I live.
- Terr_ 9y ago
  It's not that weird, people are just following the same grammatical pattern that is coming accepted for parental words like "mother" or "father". The noun becomes a contextual nickname or way to address them. Compare: For baby's brain, do X. For mommy's sanity, do Y.
  - inanutshellus 9y ago
    GP has a point and the examples you provided are not equivalent, as "Mommy" is a nickname given to every mother, but a child is not nicknamed "Baby" unless, well, Patrick Swayze is ready for the catch. So it's: "For [a] baby's brain, do X" and "For Mommy's sanity, do Y." or "For a mother's sanity, do Y."
    - sanderjd 9y ago
      > "Mommy" is a nickname given to every mother, but a child is not nicknamed "Baby" I think this is what you're missing: "baby" is indeed becoming / has become just such a nickname. It is used the same as "mommy" (or more often in my experience, "mama") by most folks involved in pre- and postnatal care. I don't think it is actually shorthand for "a baby" or "the baby", but rather for "your baby" (that is: it is more intimate). It's just stylistic (like all slang).
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Sure, but that's a particular kind of fake intimacy that's almost exclusively used by marketers and prescriptivists. Hardly anyone talks that way in normal conversation.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
I wish there were more concrete advice at the end of this blog. My child will apparently benefit from certain types of books more at her age than others; but what characteristics should I be looking for?
- dzdt 9y ago
  Whatever engages your kid!
- logicallee 9y ago
  If you want the biggest possible benefit to your baby's brain, read her a book on data science or machine learning: as a result, you will have $100,000 in extra disposible income[1] by the time she's 12. Save that up, and spend it on laboratory equipment for her of whatever kind she wants and is interested in at the time. (In case it's not clear, I mean only pretend to play with your baby now, while putting that time into improving your career secretly, as I have described.) [1] I assume you're a programmer, if not, read a read a book on Javascript instead
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    She's old enough now that I can't just use reading time to study :)
  - yorwba 9y ago
    It might not even be pretending, who says children can't enjoy hearing about the stuff their parents are involved in? My early memories are a bit hazy, but I still remember my father explaining to me the similarity between a rotating wheel and the vibration of a spring. I'm not sure what explanation he actually gave, but it might have involved gestures. So you probably shouldn't expect your children to understand and remember everything you tell them, but random bits and pieces might stick to resurface later in the process of learning them "properly".
    - sandos 9y ago
      I was very fascinated by telephone books before I was 5 years old. I also knew that I wanted to work with "data" when I grew up. I was awestruck by how much information was in the telephone book, I just could not understand how so much data could even exist! This was the early 1980s, I had never seen a computer in my life, but possibly on TV. Not surprisingly I was intrigued by a Basic-manual when I was 9 and started writing small programs. I definitely had some drive toward... something intellectual? A very vague feeling but I know for sure my brain was already influenced in my fourth year in some way to make me like "data", and reading.
dzdt 9y ago
So if you read babies boring books for months, then their expectations are that books are boring. (Not boring = named individuals and recognizable faces.)
- megaman22 9y ago
  More importantly, if you force them to read boring, badly written books for more than a decade, crushing any enjoyment out of the experience of reading, they aren't going to take much interest in reading afterwards. JK Rowling, and gulp Stephenie Meyer, have probably done more for western literacy single-handedly than millions of elementary English teachers accomplished. My folks were more in the Tom Clancy, Louis L'Amour and Stephen King era of pulps, but without those lifelines of more engaging content during the wasteland years of dreck that was pushed 3rd-10th grade...
salmonellaeater 9y ago
> After three months passed, the families returned to our lab so we could again measure the infants’ attention to our storybook characters. The researchers are rash to think that an effect observed after three months have passed will still be observable after five years or twenty. The psychological literature is full of examples of interventions that raise intelligence in the short term and have no long-term effect [1]. To date, I'm not aware of any childhood intervention (aside from adequate nutrition) that has an appreciable effect on adult intelligence. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284123208_The_environment_in_raising_early_intelligence_A_meta-analysis_of_the_fadeout_effect https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284123208_The_envir...
- bunderbunder 9y ago
  I don't know about intelligence, but the Perry Preschool Study comes to mind as an example of a controlled experiment that showed dramatic (in terms of practical, if not statistical, significance) outcomes that lasted for many decades. Also ones which matter more than intelligence, at the end of the day, such as income and jail time. I'm not sure how much better than that you might expect to get, given the amount of effort and money involved in conducting this kind of study for even a small sample size.
  - quantumofmalice 9y ago
    The research is very good that, beyond basic nutrition, very little by way of environment has a significant effect on adult intelligence. Outcomes, as you say, are a different thing and you can teach people to have lower time preferences, increase conscientiousness, etc. but, unfortunately, these are typically not what we focus on in todays social interventions.
    - beefield 9y ago
      I thought that some childhood diseases are also having clear effect?
      - 9y ago
around_here 9y ago
Many researchers out there state that it just doesn't matter very much: https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/07/31/the-academic-success-sequence-get-lucky-at-birth-mostly/ https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/07/31/the-academic-success-se...
anigbrowl 9y ago
I see they glossed over their variable isolation strategy of pairing named or generic 'characters' with computer-generated pictures of something vaguely resembling a rotting chicken. I realize that it would have been hard to measure attentive engagement if they had used more visually distinctive and rich graphics like cartoonish or photographic animals, but the randomly-generated pink/green blob shapes are so bad as to undermine the whole thing.
taneq 9y ago
Could we please, please stop trying to micro-optimize our children from birth? Give them love, food, shelter, and a rich environment, but also give them space. Give them room to breathe and explore and learn. Let them be bored sometimes. Let them make their own mistakes and choose their own projects and learn their own lessons. Let them be children.
- akhilcacharya 9y ago
  I grew up the way you describe and in terms of accomplishments I’m decades behind the folks I knew that had structured and rigorous childhoods. Learn from me folks!
  - Romanulus 9y ago
    Define 'decades behind', please. Tell us more about your childhood; your account makes it seems less-than-optimal, but I fail to see the connection between the above child-rearing method and something else.
    - akhilcacharya 9y ago
      By “decades behind” I mean I’m graduating from a top-50 CS state school instead of HYPSM, have never gotten accepted to YC, never made $10k a month while interning at trading firms, I’m not a crypto millionaire and don’t have a $100k signing bonus from FB, etc. (I know a bunch of really successful people...) When I was younger my parents gave me a lot of space to explore things I’m interested in, not like most of the folks I know in my folks’ social circle. The problem is when I was younger (middle/high school) I really did not have the discipline to explore my interests fully in a way that would appeal to admissions committees and learned very little about a wide range of subjects that aren’t particularly useful - I wasted at least 5 years of my adolescence like this. Overall it wasn’t bad but I feel like I would have been better off had I been given (and more importantly requested/accepted) more guidance with regard to career and educational/learning opportunities. By the time I got to college I was years behind my peers at top institutions, honestly not sure if I can catch up.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
Or we could, like, bring back that old fashioned much maligned practice of having a full-time parent at home, at least while the kids are little.

123 points by rhema 9y ago

(petty quibble: one of the weird grammatical quirks I really loathe is the use of "baby" as a singular proper noun. "For the baby's brain..." or "For a baby's brain.." are both perfectly fine ways to start a sentence, but the article-dropping form is everywhere on parent blogs and it drives me up the wall in ways I had not expected. ) That aside: I've increasingly come to understand the urgent need for public libraries for young families. The children's room in your average US public library is probably the most used and most important room in the building, just as a way to provide everyone with access to diverse reading material -- both for your child's sanity, and your own.

dang 9y ago
Have an 'a'. Annoyance reduction at your service.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
HorizonXP 9y ago
I think public libraries are the single best investment any municipality can make in its children. I frequented mine very often from age 4 to 12, dropping off due to advent of the Internet. Even then, I was there often enough through high school. It’s the best way to ensure free and open access to information.
- sandos 9y ago
  I frequently loaned books abount electronics and programming when I was 10-15 years old, and I try to take my kids to the library every now and then. I worry libraries will barely exist when they are 15 but the libraries seem popular, at least with smaller kids where I live.
Terr_ 9y ago
It's not that weird, people are just following the same grammatical pattern that is coming accepted for parental words like "mother" or "father". The noun becomes a contextual nickname or way to address them. Compare: For baby's brain, do X. For mommy's sanity, do Y.
- inanutshellus 9y ago
  GP has a point and the examples you provided are not equivalent, as "Mommy" is a nickname given to every mother, but a child is not nicknamed "Baby" unless, well, Patrick Swayze is ready for the catch. So it's: "For [a] baby's brain, do X" and "For Mommy's sanity, do Y." or "For a mother's sanity, do Y."
  - sanderjd 9y ago
    > "Mommy" is a nickname given to every mother, but a child is not nicknamed "Baby" I think this is what you're missing: "baby" is indeed becoming / has become just such a nickname. It is used the same as "mommy" (or more often in my experience, "mama") by most folks involved in pre- and postnatal care. I don't think it is actually shorthand for "a baby" or "the baby", but rather for "your baby" (that is: it is more intimate). It's just stylistic (like all slang).
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Sure, but that's a particular kind of fake intimacy that's almost exclusively used by marketers and prescriptivists. Hardly anyone talks that way in normal conversation.

pavel_lishin 9y ago

I wish there were more concrete advice at the end of this blog. My child will apparently benefit from certain types of books more at her age than others; but what characteristics should I be looking for?

dzdt 9y ago
Whatever engages your kid!
logicallee 9y ago
If you want the biggest possible benefit to your baby's brain, read her a book on data science or machine learning: as a result, you will have $100,000 in extra disposible income[1] by the time she's 12. Save that up, and spend it on laboratory equipment for her of whatever kind she wants and is interested in at the time. (In case it's not clear, I mean only pretend to play with your baby now, while putting that time into improving your career secretly, as I have described.) [1] I assume you're a programmer, if not, read a read a book on Javascript instead
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  She's old enough now that I can't just use reading time to study :)
- yorwba 9y ago
  It might not even be pretending, who says children can't enjoy hearing about the stuff their parents are involved in? My early memories are a bit hazy, but I still remember my father explaining to me the similarity between a rotating wheel and the vibration of a spring. I'm not sure what explanation he actually gave, but it might have involved gestures. So you probably shouldn't expect your children to understand and remember everything you tell them, but random bits and pieces might stick to resurface later in the process of learning them "properly".
  - sandos 9y ago
    I was very fascinated by telephone books before I was 5 years old. I also knew that I wanted to work with "data" when I grew up. I was awestruck by how much information was in the telephone book, I just could not understand how so much data could even exist! This was the early 1980s, I had never seen a computer in my life, but possibly on TV. Not surprisingly I was intrigued by a Basic-manual when I was 9 and started writing small programs. I definitely had some drive toward... something intellectual? A very vague feeling but I know for sure my brain was already influenced in my fourth year in some way to make me like "data", and reading.

dzdt 9y ago

So if you read babies boring books for months, then their expectations are that books are boring. (Not boring = named individuals and recognizable faces.)

megaman22 9y ago
More importantly, if you force them to read boring, badly written books for more than a decade, crushing any enjoyment out of the experience of reading, they aren't going to take much interest in reading afterwards. JK Rowling, and gulp Stephenie Meyer, have probably done more for western literacy single-handedly than millions of elementary English teachers accomplished. My folks were more in the Tom Clancy, Louis L'Amour and Stephen King era of pulps, but without those lifelines of more engaging content during the wasteland years of dreck that was pushed 3rd-10th grade...

salmonellaeater 9y ago

> After three months passed, the families returned to our lab so we could again measure the infants’ attention to our storybook characters. The researchers are rash to think that an effect observed after three months have passed will still be observable after five years or twenty. The psychological literature is full of examples of interventions that raise intelligence in the short term and have no long-term effect [1]. To date, I'm not aware of any childhood intervention (aside from adequate nutrition) that has an appreciable effect on adult intelligence. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284123208_The_environment_in_raising_early_intelligence_A_meta-analysis_of_the_fadeout_effect https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284123208_The_envir...

bunderbunder 9y ago
I don't know about intelligence, but the Perry Preschool Study comes to mind as an example of a controlled experiment that showed dramatic (in terms of practical, if not statistical, significance) outcomes that lasted for many decades. Also ones which matter more than intelligence, at the end of the day, such as income and jail time. I'm not sure how much better than that you might expect to get, given the amount of effort and money involved in conducting this kind of study for even a small sample size.
- quantumofmalice 9y ago
  The research is very good that, beyond basic nutrition, very little by way of environment has a significant effect on adult intelligence. Outcomes, as you say, are a different thing and you can teach people to have lower time preferences, increase conscientiousness, etc. but, unfortunately, these are typically not what we focus on in todays social interventions.
  - beefield 9y ago
    I thought that some childhood diseases are also having clear effect?
    - 9y ago

around_here 9y ago

Many researchers out there state that it just doesn't matter very much: https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/07/31/the-academic-success-sequence-get-lucky-at-birth-mostly/ https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/07/31/the-academic-success-se...

anigbrowl 9y ago

I see they glossed over their variable isolation strategy of pairing named or generic 'characters' with computer-generated pictures of something vaguely resembling a rotting chicken. I realize that it would have been hard to measure attentive engagement if they had used more visually distinctive and rich graphics like cartoonish or photographic animals, but the randomly-generated pink/green blob shapes are so bad as to undermine the whole thing.

taneq 9y ago

Could we please, please stop trying to micro-optimize our children from birth? Give them love, food, shelter, and a rich environment, but also give them space. Give them room to breathe and explore and learn. Let them be bored sometimes. Let them make their own mistakes and choose their own projects and learn their own lessons. Let them be children.

akhilcacharya 9y ago
I grew up the way you describe and in terms of accomplishments I’m decades behind the folks I knew that had structured and rigorous childhoods. Learn from me folks!
- Romanulus 9y ago
  Define 'decades behind', please. Tell us more about your childhood; your account makes it seems less-than-optimal, but I fail to see the connection between the above child-rearing method and something else.
  - akhilcacharya 9y ago
    By “decades behind” I mean I’m graduating from a top-50 CS state school instead of HYPSM, have never gotten accepted to YC, never made $10k a month while interning at trading firms, I’m not a crypto millionaire and don’t have a $100k signing bonus from FB, etc. (I know a bunch of really successful people...) When I was younger my parents gave me a lot of space to explore things I’m interested in, not like most of the folks I know in my folks’ social circle. The problem is when I was younger (middle/high school) I really did not have the discipline to explore my interests fully in a way that would appeal to admissions committees and learned very little about a wide range of subjects that aren’t particularly useful - I wasted at least 5 years of my adolescence like this. Overall it wasn’t bad but I feel like I would have been better off had I been given (and more importantly requested/accepted) more guidance with regard to career and educational/learning opportunities. By the time I got to college I was years behind my peers at top institutions, honestly not sure if I can catch up.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

Or we could, like, bring back that old fashioned much maligned practice of having a full-time parent at home, at least while the kids are little.