September 28, 2009 by Dianne.

Why Are ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada’ a Baby’s First Words?

LiveScience Staff

LiveScience.com livescience Staff

A baby’s first words are often “mama” and “dada,” much to the delight of parents. Now scientists think they know why.

Beyond the obvious - Mommy and Daddy are around a lot and babies are drawn to them - languages in many cultures have apparently made the task easy by creating words for mothers and fathers that feature patterns of repeating sounds, a new study suggests.

To arrive at this finding, brain scans were made of 22 newborns (age 2 days to 3 days) while they listened to recordings of made-up words. They heard words that end in repeating syllables, such as “mubaba” and “penana,” as well as words without them, such as “mubage” and “penaku.”

Brain activity increased in the babies’ temporal and left frontal areas whenever the repetitious words were played. Words with non-adjacent repetitions (”bamuba” or “napena”) elicited no distinctive responses from the brain.

This suggests “mommy” and “daddy” are well-chosen words to teach a baby, and it also indicates that the ability to more easily recognize these sorts of repetitive sounds is hard-wired in the human brain.

The research, led by University of British Columbia post-doctoral fellow Judit Gervain, was published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It’s probably no coincidence that many languages around the world have repetitious syllables in their ‘child words,’” Gervain said, citing “papa” in Italian and “tata” (grandpa) in Hungarian as examples.

“The language center of most right-handed adults is located on the left side of the brain,” Gervain said. “This is consistent with our finding with newborn babies and supports our belief humans are born with abilities that allow us to perceive and learn our mother tongue systematically and efficiently.”

“The brain areas that are responsible for language in an adult do not ‘learn’ how to process language during development, but rather, they are specialized - at least in part - to process language from the start.”

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September 27, 2009 by Dianne.

We missed our scheduled plane this morning because there was a huge traffic jam, and it took 2.5 hours to reach the airport.  However, my niece’s husband was able to re-book from his car as he drove us to PuDong.

  The three of us (Mason, my niece, and I) will be staying with another of my nieces and her family.  Everyone is so kind to us.  We are really grateful to have such nice friends and relatives.

 We will be here through Oct.1

  Then we will be visiting friends in Song Jiang for three days, so we will not be back at the apartment on GuangLingYi lu until Oct. 5.

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September 25, 2009 by Dianne.

I have recently been posting long groups of photos concerning a single subject.  Here are two pictures that I took of the pets of some people my sister and I went to visit.   It is not part of a series - just something for those of you who love animals.

You may recall that just about a year ago I posted a shot of a cat that was both deaf and blind.  This cat is also totally deaf but at least has his sight.  He does not go outside much and is content to stay inside with an elderly couple that take very good care of him.

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September 22, 2009 by Dianne.

These final photos are not of the team members.  The first two are of a very cute little boy who was there with his parents.  Notice that he is wearing a Cardinals shirt.  It is very common for fans to buy and wear the shirts of their favorite teams and players and they often buy them for their children, too.  Who knows? Maybe this little boy WILL be a member of the team 20 years from now….

The final picture is of a much larger individual.  I told you the practices were held on a university campus.  The university also has a football team, and they are known as the Lumberjacks.  A lumberjack is someone who makes his living  by cutting down the large trees in the forest.

Remember I told you that teams often like names that sound very strong?  Well, they also like symbols that portray the same thing.  My sister is standing next to the statue, so you can see that it is huge.  You can’t see it in the photo, but he is carrying a large axe.  How would you like to run into him on a dark night? :>)

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September 21, 2009 by Dianne.

A partial outline of our schedule can be found on the Sept 14 entry.  There are some additions.

Oct. 2, 3, 4  in Song Jiang visiting friends.

I have appointments Sept. 21 from 10:00 until noon and from 7:00 PM until 9:30

I have appointments Sept 22 from 3:30 until 5:30 PM and from 7:30 PM until 9:30

I have an appointment Sept 23 from 11:45  AM until 2:30PM

I have an appointment Sat, Sept 26 from 10:00 AM until 2:00 PM  AND

an evening engagement beginning around 6:00 PM

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September 21, 2009 by Dianne.

I now have a cell phone number in case you cannot reach me at GuangLing Yi Lu apartment.BUT, FIRST try the apartment phone: 65423070  and then ask for Room 1302.

My son may be carrying the cell phone, so do niot be surprised if you hear a man’s voice.  If we are unable to make an appointment over the cell phone because we do not have the schedule with us, we can at least tell you when we will be home.

CELL PHONE:  13262524745

We have seen several people already and look forwrd to seeing many more.  Please use the phone rather than email to make an appointment, as we  may have more problems with the email.

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September 19, 2009 by Dianne.

The pictures in this group were all taken AFTER the practice had ended.  It is usual at these practice sessions for the players to give the spectators an opportunity to get autographs.  From looking at the crowd you can see that the spectators come in both genders and in all ages.   For many of the fans, this is the only time they could ever get so close to people that are their heroes.

The other thing you can see from the photos is the size of the players.  Notice how muscular they are and how tall most of them are.

There is one other reason why I included so many shots of the players.  My sister had told me that almost every year the team did very poorly.  Nothing different was expected in 2008.  However, they had an excellent team and ended up playing in the championship game - the Super Bowl.  As it turned out, it was one of the best Super Bowls ever.  The game was very close, and the lead kept going back and forth between them and the Pittsburgh Steelers.  In the final seconds the Steelers scored a touchdown and won.  I was rooting for the Steelers, but if the Cardinals had won, I would not have been sad because it was the first time the team had gone that far and it must have been very disappointing to their loyal fans to think that, finally, they would win a championship and then get beaten at the last minute.

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September 16, 2009 by Dianne.

Hi,

We have arrived safely . However, we are having problems trying to use the computer for either email or the blog.  Please contact us via the phone: 65423070 and then ask for extension 1302.

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September 16, 2009 by Dianne.

Each team has 11 players on the field at a time.  There are obviously many more players than that in this photo, but that is because they were running through several drills and exercises before beginning  a scrimmage (a practice game.)  Notice that the players in this picture have on t-shirts and short pants. They are wearing protective pads on their shoulders (you can see how big their shoulders look), but if it were a regular game or during one of the later practices, they would have padding on their hips as well and wear a different kind of uniform.  Notice that even though this is not a real game, they all wear helmets to protect their heads and faces.  You can tell who the coaches are by looking for the people that do not have on the protective gear.  Every professional team has many coaches, and several can be seen below.

I told you I would give you more of the basic rules.  The playing field is 100 yards long (a yard is 7.5 cm. less than a meter) plus an “end zone” and goal posts. The main ways in which points can be scored are by a player carrying the ball over the end line into the end zone, by someone (usually the quarterback) passing the ball into the hands of a teammate who is standing in the end zone, and by a designated player kicking the ball from someplace between the two end lines over the crossbar of the goal posts and between the two upright posts.  If you look to the right side of the photo below,  you can see the goal posts.  You will notice they are not very big, so the player that kicks the ball must be very skillful.  The longest kick that has been made was from more than halfway down the field.

Also notice the player in the second photo who is not crouched down but, rather, is in more of a standing position.  This is the quarterback.  He is the one who calls out the play so the other team members will know what each should do.  He doesn’t name the play with words.  Instead, he calls out a series of numbers that act as a code so the other team will not know what they are going to do.  At the end of calling out of the numbers, he will say, “HUP.”  This means the players should start to execute the play immediately.  The offensive team has an obvious advantage in that they will know what play is going to be called because it will have been discussed in a “huddle” (a very brief discussion among the offensive team members that is held between each play.) The defensive team cannot move toward the team with the ball until the ball is put in play.  If they do, a penalty will be called.

The game is divided into four quarters. The teams change goals at the end of each quarter so that if one half of the field has some problem (very muddy, etc), neither team will have a disadvantage by having to play on it the entire game.

The game is begun with a “kickoff.”  The ball is placed on a kicking tee located no farther forward than the 30 yard line.  One player then kicks the ball to the receiving team and play begins.  The receiving team catches the ball and advances it as far as possible.  From that point , the offensive team has four attempts to advance the ball ten yards.  If you look at the final photo, you will see an official standing in the background holding up a pole with a round shape at the top.  This tells the team how far they must advance.  If they succeed in going the ten yards within the four tries, they get four more chances to advance the ball another 10 yards.  When they fail to do so, possession of the ball goes to the other team who can now try to score.

This is only an incomplete outline of the game, but it should help you to at least understand the pictures somewhat better.

Here is the final photo in this group:

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September 14, 2009 by Dianne.

Please pay attention to the following request.  Those of you who took my writing class know that the writer really means what she is saying.

The biggest gift any of you can give me is to take some of your time to visit me.  PLEASE do NOT bring me any other kind of gifts. It is YOU  I am looking forward to seeing.

THANKS.

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