Today our topic of discussion is- Attention and memory
Attention and memory
Learning to pay attention or concentrate on something is another important cognitive ability that helps a child to focus on one task or topic for a long period of time and once a child learns to pay attention, it continues throughout his life (Payne & Isaac, 2012).
Children under five years of age are likely to have short attention spans, typically 15 minutes or less; by the time the child turns eight years, it increases and the child focuses on one thing for a longer period and completes the given task.
Children then get less distracted and become more skilled (Payne & Isaac, 2012). Like attention, ‘memory’ is another cognitive skill that helps a child to retain his so far learning and experiences that he gathered.
It is a way to build a base for future knowledge. In addition, children below five years face difficulty in long term memory retention, but as they develop, long term memory improves and helps the child to steadily build on the previous learning (Payne & Isaac 2012).
On the basis of the coded data the following categories can be discussed under the
theme ‘attention and memory’-
(a) Advanced sentence use
(b) Developing conversational skills
(c) Language used from previous experiences
(d) Asking questions
(e) Describing things and story telling
(f) Singing songs and rhymes
(a) Advanced sentence use:
I am referring as ‘advanced sentence use’ to the stage of a child’s life when he exceeds the two word combination or ‘telegraphic stage’ and starts using sentences of more than three words, with comparatively more complex grammatical features and verb forms. When a child starts using more complex sentences, his use of gestures becomes limited than before as he can express everything more clearly with words.
He can also continue conversations and convey his needs and wants to others also. This cognitive skill is a combination of memory and attention mainly. Examples of
few advanced sentences collected from the participant children during the observations
are like-
Child Sunny:
Child Sunny’s language was not that much rich verbally as he observed more and talked very less. When he spoke, he tried to finish quickly or only through gestures. His
longer sentence use stage started later than the other children. Almost at the age of 3 years his longsentences are found as data. One day when I was visiting his house, his mother gave us a snack and tomato ketchup with them. Sunny said-
C:/dekso baiya, sos ta lal roŋ, amar baba je amake ek bakĵo roŋ kine ḍise oita te o lalase./= (Look brother, this sauce is red, father gave me a colour box and it had red
colour in it too.
-He praises his mother when she gets ready to go out, like-
C:/ma ajke tomake befi sundor lagse./=(Mother you are looking very beautiful today.)
Words and structures used in the above sentences prove one thing and that is- Sunny might be using longer sentences at the age of three, but he is familiar with contextual use of sentences and his vocabularies are already richer than expected. He might be an introvert or less social child who doesn’t feel like talking all the time.
• Child Ikra
-C:/eta aturi tanbir baba wale cobi lagay./=(This is a hammer, uncle hangs pictures
on the wall with this.)
C:/eta to sizar, kagoz kate./ (This is a scissor, it cuts paper.)
-Ikra could use long, meaningful sentences since she was 2 years and 4 months old. She had the habit of describing things, and probably this habit developed her language use. It also increased her vocabularies a lot.
Or she answers to questions like-
C:/glas ta ke pheleche?/= (Who dropped the glass?)
C:/gas ta to nagal pabona, oita to upore./= (I can’t reach the glass, it’s up there.) etc.
I have seen both Ikra and Anna talking a lot; even when there is no need to talk, both of them keep talking. It is a successful way to express language more appropriately.
Child Mro:
According to Mro’s family, he is talkative and answered to all the questions when asked. At the beginning he talked very less in front of me, probably because I was not his family member, but later it developed.
One day when I went to his house, his mother could not come downstairs as she was sick and sleeping. I was asking Mro’s aunt what happened to her, Mro suddenly said- C:/aste kotha bolo, mamonir gum baŋle pete bæta korbe./= (Speak slowly,
if mom gets up from sleep she will have stomach ache.) His mother said when he sees something attractive on TV, he says- C:/ammu amake oi garita kinnya dio./= (Mom, please buy me that car.)
C:/ammu amake ei coklet ta dio./= (Mom, please buy me that chocolate.) etc.
Almost all the children started using long sentences from 2.5 years onwards. And the sentences were meaningful, contextually right, but grammatical use (verbs and tenses) were sometimes mistaken and this is normal for children of this age.
The more they will talk the less they will make mistakes. Children will become capable of expressing meaning more productively only when they will have communicative language environment around them.
So, it is the duty of the family members to engage children in all types of (appropriate for them) contextual conversations. Use complete sentences more in front of them so that they can learn vocabularies and contextual use of words.
(b) Developing conversational skills:
Conversational skills development can be taken as a progressive form of advanced sentence use stage. A conversation requires involvements of two (or more) persons using the same topic in the same linguistic environment. It is a form of social contact development which requires skills like- thinking, reasoning, contextual meaning mapping etc.
So, if a child is frequent in continuing a conversation, his language development is surely on the right track following the proper language milestones. Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles decided to identify the key factors that lead to the growth of a child’s language.
After observing 275 young children’s (0-4 years of age) families, they studied adult speech, child speech, and use of television in the child’s environment, and looked at the influence each had on the child’s language growth (University f California, 2009).
The following features have been found: Back-and-forth dialogue contributed most to the child’s future language score (six times more than adult speech alone)
Adult monologue (one-sided interaction, such as reading a child’s book without the child’s participation) was more weakly related to language development
TV watching has no impact on the production of the language (positive or negative).
I disagree about the third argument. I have found that watching TV helps improve the vocabulary.
While watching TV for a long time is harmful, child-friendly TV shows help to build languages (like-Barney, Sesame street, Meena cartoon, TV programs in channel Duranto etc.). And it has an effect on the production of language too.
But the key point of the above study is that, engaging children in a conversation is actually promoting their language competence. According to Dr. Jill Gilkerson, co-author of the UCLA report, “Talk is powerful, but what’s even more powerful is involving a child in
c) Language used from previous experiences: Sometimes children use language that they have heard previously or respond to contexts that they have experienced before. Such use of language has been categorized and discussed as ‘language used from previous experiences’.
To reuse previous knowledge, children have to depend on memory and reasoning skills mainly. I have experienced that past language experience helps them use language in proper contexts in the future and percentage of successful communication rate increases comparatively.
There have been many instances I have observed during the data collection session when the child said something at the moment of time that proved to be perfect meaning mapping for that context. He or she did not get time to imitate someone else’s answer or nobody taught them what to say at that time. I preferred to sort out these data as the language used from previous learning. Examples of such language use are as follow-
Child Mro-
Mro knew many practical things besides academic knowledge. He learned these from his family members (especially the females) when they did household chores; for example through by going to bazaar with his grandfather or how to cook rice from his mother. Some of his language uses reflect this-
C:/ajke dadu ceua mas anse dupure ceua mas diya bhat khabo./= (Today
grandfather brought ‘cheuya’ fish, I ate rice with that.)
C:/bater cal niya d’uite hoy naile moyla taika jay./= (Rice needs to be washed
before cooking or it remains dirty.)
C:/lǝbon kom hoise ajke./= (The curry lacks salt today.)
When Mro goes to the bazaar with his grandfather, he reminds him to buy the things his family members like to eat. Like, buy ‘Banana’ for aunt or ‘Betel leaf” for grandmother
etc.
Mro recognizes some common signs and symbols also, like-
-‘Fan’ sign from switch board (If he says he will turn on the fan that means he knows how to
do that.)
-Light’ sign from switch board
-*Calling bell’ sign
-School ahead’ sign.
-Telephone sign.
-No smoking sign.
Child Simmi-
In the evening. Simmi’s mother goes to the nearby park to walk. Simmi goes with her too. From there she learnt some related words. Like-
C:/hatar juta./= (Jogging shoes.)
C:/graf./= (Grass.)
C:/moyla./= (Garbage.)
C:/pore bæta./= (Pain due to fall.)
C:/komor bæta./= (Back pain.)
Later, when she described her experiences in the park, she used these words frequently. One day when the children were playing together in the living room, Simmi complained that she has back pain and after asking how that happened, she said because she jogged in the park (she actually plays there). This is why children need to be exposed to contents as they collect vocabularies from practical experiences.
When Simmi describes something, she tries to use English words a lot that she already knows. Like-
C:/amra je ice cream kheyesilam jeta onek big silo./= (The ice cream we had was
quite Big.)
C:/amar jamata pore amake wow lagse na!/= (Am I not looking wow in this dress!)
C:/didira ki iskul ſuz porese?/= (Did sisters put on their school shoes?)
C:/ami to garl na! tai jama pori./= (I am a girl! that’s why I wear frocks). She learned
these and many more words mostly from her sisters and from her mother when she talks to her other daughters.
Sometimes children said something which amazed me. Like, one day when Sunny’s toy car’s music was not playing loudly like before, he called his mother and said- C:/ammu, gayi bæta bæta./= (Mother, the car’s battery!)
He wanted to say that the battery might have gone down. He was only 2 years 3 months old then. This example explores the fact that, memorization, thinking and reasoning are the issues related to children’s contextual language usage. And it is truly the blessings of the Almighty that a child, at a very young age knows the pragmatic use of his mother tongue.
(d) Asking questions:
Asking questions is a cognitive development that helps a child pay more attention to what he or she has been exposed to and also challenges the child’s ability to choose specific words to describe his or her thoughts (Chouinard et al. 2007).
By the age of two a child is involved in conversations with others. At the same time, the child starts asking questions too as an attempt to keep the conversation going; he also loves answering simple questions (Sullivan, 2019). His curiosity and interests to know life and things inspire him to get into question-answer sessions.
To ask questions a child need to have- a) attention skills that enable him to concentrate on a specific issue and b) thinking skills that will help him to work out tasks and find solutions. A child is only asking questions when he is paying attention to the language interaction he has been attending to and as a part of his cognitive development of reasoning things.
e) Describing things and story telling:
A child’s ability to describe things starts usually at the age of three. By that time, they can combine many individual words, use simple sentences, combination of sentences (joining a couple of simple sentences) to express meaning.
After that, grammatical items and increased vocabularies help them describe anything they want. It can be a story they have heard, any incident, cartoon show etc. Some children are able to describe everything they have witnessed or know, but usually at this age describing is something like summing up.
Child describing things ensures that- -the child’s vocabulary acquisition is developing and -he can comprehend well.
Child Ikra-
c:/amar bæg to papa bankok theke anse. pin kalarer fozen bæg./= (Father brought me a pink frozen bag from Bangkok.)
When I asked Ikra about her new bags, books and other school accessories, she said- c:/baiyar ta ayron mæn, oitate lait o ase./= (Bhaiya’s one is an Iron Man and that has c:/papa water botol ar box o anse./= (He brought water bottle and snack box too.)
light too.)
C:/amar jonno blu fozen paise. kintu baiyar ayron mæn pay nai./= (He brought blue frozen for me, but could not get an Iron man box and bottle for my brother). Ikra started describing things in detail.
Ikra’s brother goes to ‘Karate’ class. Ikra also goes sometimes with her mother to pick him up. When they return home and father (or anybody) asks at night what happened, Ikra does not let her brother describe anything. She tries to describe everything with necessary body languages and acts. Like-
C:/baiyader hai hui korte hoy./= (Brothers’ have to make sounds like ‘HaiHui’.)
C:/jobai saide saide boje, karon majkane mæt./= (Everybody has to sit around as
there is a mat in the middle.)
C:/ticar efe baiyader maramari korte bale./=(Teacher comes and asks the my brother
and all to fight.)
C:/Jobai maramari pereche kintu baiya pare nai./= (Everyone managed to fight except brother.). Her brother started taking classes only last week, so he is still watching and learning the techniques.
Child Sunny-
-Sunny’s father bought a new sofa set. Sunny tried to tell K how it was brought to their drawing room in detail-
C:/jano, eto borotake mathay kore nise theke uthaise ar eibabe t’ele t’ele dukaise
rume/= (You know, they carried this big sofa from ground floor to our apartment on their
head and then pushed it inside the room like this- he acted it.)
-I saw a small red mark on his right cheek. I asked him what it was, Sunny’s mother wanted to answer, Sunny did not let her answer. He said-
C:/amra babar Jathe gesilam omna park e, boijak silo na! oikane dǝl kinsilam ar ankel afsilo. ankeler hate pleit silo, amake ar appi ke akay dise./= (We went to ‘Ramna’ park with my father as it was ‘Pahela boishakh’. There we bought a doll. An uncle was there with a colour palette on his hand, he drew this on our cheek).
During such festivals in Bangladesh, students from ‘fine art institution’ walk around with their colour palettes and offer ‘face painting’ to all, During my observations I have seen that all the children do not describe everything in detail, some of them only say things when asked for them.
I have observed that boys try to finish describing something as fast as possible; they do not like to add details like the girls do. Sometimes they take long pauses after telling a partial story and then finish the rest without much interest or as question-answer format. On the other hand, girls love to say
everything in detail, even if it’s not needed. They have introduction, middle section and ending of everything. They use lots of linking words like- “then”, “again”, “after that”, ‘also” etc. It seems like they enjoy describing and they don’t even get tired in doing so. I really find it amazing to see how the children recall so many things with detail.
Their wordings are amazing and they make up some parts of the story when they start describing. Their expressions are remarkable with sufficient gestures and facial expressions. They even try to imitate the wordings and the expressions of the actual person who told the story or who was involved in the conversation.
This wonderful ability to memorize and illustrate something requires proper attention and it is a major cognitive development as well.
(f) Singing songs and rhymes:
A child must have a good memory and longer attention spans if they want to learn rhymes or sing songs. It influences child’s language, cognitive, social and emotional developments.
Sally Goddard Blythe is a Neuro-developmental education specialist and director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology.
According to her, traditional lullabies and nursery rhymes for babies and infants (especially before they learn to speak) are a key precursor to later educational success and emotional wellbeing. She says that, music is a special kind of expression. Lullabies, songs and rhymes of any culture bear the mother tongue’s ‘signature’ melodies and inflections, preparing the ear, voice and brain of a child for language” (Blythe, 2011).
Before they learn to talk, singing traditional lullabies and nursery rhymes is an important precursor to subsequent educational achievement and emotional well-being, Blythe (2011) said in her book The Genius of Natural Childhood that, traditional songs improve the capacity of a child to think in words.
She also believes that listening and singing along with rhymes and songs utilizes and improves both sides of the brain; even Neuro-imaging has shown that music requires more than just localized hot spots in the brain, covering large swathes on both sides.
Blythe claims that singing and then listening to a child successfully enhances their ability to communicate. Music and rhyme improve the child’s skill in spatial thinking, which can also strengthen the child’s logical and science skills.
When children hear rhymes and songs, they hear the sounds and the features (especially the supra segmentals) of the language. When parents sing to a child at home, they love the time and contact with their parents. Changing vocal tones or variation in the song’s sounds, helps the child understand the natural sounds of a language.
Using different rhyming words helps children refine the sound of the word in their cars and understand how we blend and combine sounds to build sentences. Sometimes lines from rhymes become children’s early sentences too (Kenney, 2005).
Most of the rhymes and children’s songs have beginning, middle and endings; so children learn sequencing also. Nursery rhymes maintain a stable and happy relationship between parents and children. Healthy physical interaction between a parent and a child or between children is often beneficial for social growth.
In addition, humorous nursery rhymes encourage children to develop a sense of humor (Kenney, 2005). That is why developmental psychologists often recommend learning with rhymes or songs when parents want to enhance their children’s language and cognitive development together.
Practically all the children invovled could memorize rhymes, both Bengali and English. Child Sunny’s most of the rhymes were Bengali rhymes until his father bought few
English rhyme books for him when he was 3.5 years old. His parents (mother especially) did not sing any English rhymes with him earlier, so he knew only the Bengali ones.
Children, who went to English medium schools and attended pre-play groups, learnt rhymes with body movements and acts.
And they enjoyed memorizing them after they returned home from school or on the way home. Almost all the participating children learnt Bengali songs from schools, parents and also from TV shows. They all learnt national anthem quickly after they started going to school. After four years and above the children started showing versatilities in selecting songs.
Anna and Simmi learnt couple of Hindi songs from TV, Ikra on the other hand learnt few lines of an animated Disney movie’s title song. Later, when they joined music class, their songs were selected by their teachers.
At the beginning, tunes and wordings were not clear and not 100% imitative too. Even they made their own words when they forgot the originals. Gradually they overcame those drawbacks. One noticeable thing is, they did not bother about getting meanings of a song in their early years (before 3 and more). Later, when their vocabularies and meaning mappings developed, they wanted to know the meanings of the songs.
Like, there is a famous Bengali song ‘Amar bhaiyer rokte rangano ekushe february… based on the Bengali ‘Language Movement’ of 1952. Anna asked me why it is about brother’s (“bhaiyer”) blood sheds, why not sister’s. Moreover, she assumed herself that perhaps sisters were not present there that day.
So, children think about the meanings of the songs but all of them do not share and follow the same pave and there is no specific stage or strategy for that too. But for all children, music and rhyming are essential as they help in early language development.
I personally admire children who laugh, sing and enjoy life. Singing is a way to express our feelings and emotions and it is also a way to let us know that our children are happy and enjoying themselves. So, I personally encourage my children to listen to more music and participate in school concerts and act out their rhymes and sing songs loudly.
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