Why a messy baby may be brainier

http://www.today.com/moms/why-messy-baby-may-be-brainier-2D11665036

Kavita Varma-White
Dec. 2, 2013

Next time your baby mashes his bananas, apple sauce AND carrots all together — not to mention all over his hands, hair and the high chair—don’t fret about the mess. Your little one just may be getting smarter in the process.

In a study of more than 70 kids, aged 16 months, researchers at the University of Iowa wanted to know how well children learn words for non-solid objects, such as mushy oatmeal and gooey glue. Previous research has shown that toddlers learn more about solid objects because they can easily identify them due to the unchanging size and shape of the objects.

But it turns out that if you put toddlers in a setting they are familiar with, such as sitting in a high chair stuffing their mouths and playing with food, they actually do better at learning the names of foods in differing shapes and sizes. So says a paper published Monday in Developmental Science by University of Iowa researchers Larissa Samuleson, Lynn Perry, and Johanna Burdinie.

-----

When the children were in a high chair, they were more apt to name the food than those children who were seated in other less familiar settings, such as a table, the study found. The researchers think that’s because kids generally know high chairs are a safe zone for getting their messy on.

-----