The scientist in the crib: what early learning tells us about the mind
- New York Harper Collins 1999
- xv, 264 p.
Preface and Acknowledgments Chapter 1 Ancient Questions and a Young Science The Ancient Questions Baby 0.0 The Other Socratic Method The Great Chain of Knowing Piaget and Vygotsky The New View: The Computational Baby Chapter 2 What Children Learn About People What Newborns Know The Really Eternal Triangle Peace and Conflict Studies Changing Your Point of View The Conversational Attic Learning About "About" The Three-Year-Old Opera: Love and Deception Knowing You Didn't Know: Education and Memory How Do They Do It? Mind-Blindness Becoming a Psychologist When Little Brother Is Watching Chapter 3 What Children Learn About Things What Newborns Know The Irresistible Allure of Stripes The Importance of Movement Seeing the World Through 3-D Glasses The Tree in the Quad and the Keys in the Washcloth Making Things Happen Kinds of Things How Do They Do It? World-Blindness The Explanatory Drive Grown-ups as Teachers Chapter 4 What Children Learn About Language The Sound Code Making Meanings The Grammar We Don't Learn in School What Newborns Know Taking Care of the Sounds: Becoming a Language-Specific Listener The Tower of Babble The First Words Putting It Together How Do They Do It? Word-Blindness: Dyslexia and Dysphasia Learning Sounds Learning How to Mean "Motherese" Chapter 5 What Scientists Have Learned About Children's Minds Evolution's Programs The Star Trek Archaeologists Foundations Learning The Developmental View: Sailing in Ulysses' Boat Big Babies The Scientist as Child: The Theory Theory Explanation as Orgasm Other People Nurture as Nature The Klingons and the Vulcans Sailing Together Chapter 6] What Scientists Have Learned About Children's Brains The Adult Brain How Brains Get Built Wiring the Brain: Talk to Me Synaptic Pruning: When a Loss Is a Gain Are There Critical Periods? The Social Brain The Brain in the Boat Chapter 7 Trailing Clouds of Glory What Is to Be Done? Notes References Index
This exciting book by three pioneers in the new field of cognitive science discusses important discoveries about how much babies and young children know and learn, and how much parents naturally teach them. It argues that evolution designed us both to teach and learn, and that the drive to learn is our most important instinct. It also reveals as fascinating insights about our adult capacities and how even young children -- as well as adults -- use some of the same methods that allow scientists to learn so much about the world. Filled with surprise at every turn, this vivid, lucid, and often funny book gives us a new view of the inner life of children and the mysteries of the mind.