The shell game

You know the shell game? Usually it's done with three half coconut husks, and a ball or puck, hidden beneath one of them. In New York City (at least years ago) the hucksters plying three-card monty were ubiquitous. This was a variation, using three slightly bent playing cards, face down. In each case, the goal is to find the object (the ball, puck, or red ace), while the other party shuffles and reshuffles them.

With my boys, I play a slight variation. We take a small ball or other object. I place it between my cupped palms, shaking back and forth. Then I separate my hands, and hide the object in one of them. They have to guess which hand has the object. For the older boy, he can point to the hand, or say "left" or "right". For the toddler, I just open which ever hand he touches first (though he often grabs both at the same time), revealing either an empty hand, or the object.

You can vary this of course, using plastic bowls or storage containers. Start with just two choices however, to keep it simple, and get your children accustomed to the idea of finding a hidden object. After a while, you can add a third or even more. You can take two checker pieces, one red, one black, and hide them both. This is a bit simpler, but similar to Playing with Contrasts. Mix it up. Have fun. Your kids will love the game.

Seek in the dark

Here's a variation to Impoverished Senses. #2 and I were getting ready for bed in our accustomed way, in the dark, with the door closed. I took an empty Nesquick can, cardboard with a metal bottom. It makes a nice percussive sound, when tapped with the fingers or fingernails. I explained to #2 (14 months at this point) that I was going to go somewhere, and he had to follow the noise, and find me. I moved to one part of the room, and tapped on the can bottom: thump-duduh-dump ... thump-duduh-dump. He came and plopped on my lap, a bit cautiously. I snuggled for a moment, then moved to another part of the room, repeating the game. And again. By about the fifth time he was sated. He lay down next to me on the floor, butt in the air, and went to sleep. I lifted him into his crib, gave a peck, then left.

Taste Test

Here's a wonderful little game you can play with your children. It works well for any child of an age to eat solid foods. Go to your spice cabinet and gather up a bunch of different spices. Name the spice, then poor a little bit out on to a plate, or into your hand. Have them taste each spice in order, repeating the name again as they taste it. Keep water handy if you let them taste anything spicy. If you have them dip a wet finger into the spices (a handy way to get a little bit to their mouths) just make sure they don't rub their eyes.

Vary the exercise on different occasions. Instead of spices, use different kinds of melons, or fruits, or vegetables. One they're familiar with the game, try making it more and more subtle. Use five kinds of apples, or oranges, or peppers, or beans.

As a bonus, you'll be exposing your toddlers to a variety of different foods before they've developed strong preferences, or getting your preschoolers to eat more fruits and vegetables, if they often resist. Maybe they'll even decide they like pears, or mangoes.

You can discuss and describe the different textures and colors of the spices, or fruits, or vegetables. You can talk about the different shapes, and different kinds of skins, or how the plant grows. You can collect the seeds, and see how different they look. Plant them as another special project. You can draw pictures with your children of the different foods, or write out the names in letters.

Playing with food. Now isn't that something every kid likes?

Replacement/displacement

Last night, in the van, #1 came up with his own variation of the alphabet song. He sang through it all, but replaced the beginning of every letter with "j": jay, jee, jee, jee, jee, jef, jee, jach, juy, ..... It got me thinking. How creative.

It's similar to the old play song Mary, Mary, bo-bary, fee fih fo fary, Mary.... There's also the "BINGO"-type play songs. B-I-N-G-O... [clap]-I-N-G-O ... [clap]-[clap]-N-G-O.

Each of these enhances memory, and helps exercise their ability to keep several things in mind at once. I thought about how this can be applied to other domains as well.

The boys have a small rug in their room, with a map of the U.S. I picked it up, and turned it around. There are many subtle ways to challenge your child's acuity in noticing change. Rearrange one room in the house, or put a familiar object in a different place. See if your child notices. Talk about it with them, even if they're not yet talking.

This will only work if the child has well-established expectations about the object. So use things that they are quite familiar with, or which have always been in the same place. Don't overuse the technique, or they'll just suspect the whole world turned upside down.

In music, there is a whole practice (especially in the Baroque era) of manipulating melodies by reversing them or inverting them (intervals that went up, now go down). This can be done with rhythms (dum-dum-duh-duh-dum becomes dum-duh-duh-dum-dum).


You can make up your own variations with replacement (changing the first or the last sound or word or note, or putting a different object in a familiar place) displacement (rearranging a room, or transposing a melody, or moving a bookshelf from the corner to the middle of a wall), inversion (count backwards, or walk backwards, instead of forwards), reversion (well, you get the point).

The uniqueness of the human voice

Published in 2000, in the journal Nature (Belin, Pascal, et al., 2000, “Voice-selective areas in human auditory cortex,” Nature 43, 20 January 2000: 309-312), is a brief report on three experiments by a team of researchers, regarding the brain's response to human vocal sounds:

In conclusion, they write:

p.311
[T]hese experiments provide strong evidence that the human brain contains regions that are not only sensitive to, but also strongly selective to, human voices. ... it could lead to new comparisons between species, by suggesting that areas sensitive to species-typical vocalizations could be found in the homologous regions in other primates. Indeed, language is probably unique to humans, and its possible evolutionary precursors are hard to define and study in other animals. In contrast, we share the ability to reliably extract affective- and identity-related cues from the species-specific vocalizations with many other species, at least of primates. Finally, these data extend the current knowledge on the organization of the human auditory cortex, by identifying regions of the brain involved in the analysis of human voices, a class of auditory objects of high occurrence and ecological interest.

This represents a major shift in our approach to sound stimuli. During the 1960s and 1970s a technique known as dichotic listening was quite popular. Subjects were given stereo headphones, which presented different stimuli to each ear. A comparison between the processing abilities of listeners, based on which brain hemisphere received the data, and on what sorts of stimuli were presented, led to a great many conclusions regarding the localization of capacities in one side of the brain or the other. Mostly these conclusions described which hemisphere was better equipped to process certain types of information (known as hemispheric dominance.)

One major assumption in many of these studies regarded the nature of the stimuli that were used. Often they were arbitrarily classed as "linguistic" or "non-linguistic," and conclusions were hastily drawn regarding the brain's reaction to language stimuli. This new study calls into question these earlier assumptions, by noting an empirical distinction between vocal and non-vocal sounds produced by conspecifics, but not one between linguistic and non-linguistic sounds.

As Belin, et al. point out, language is likely uniquely the domain of humans, but the ability to produce and understand affective and indentifying information (which is clearly a part of language) is one we share with other creatures, certainly with our primate cousins.

Human children are born with the special propensity to draw out the human voice from a cacophony of sounds, and to abstract from the sounds of the human voice information regarding who is speaking, and what emotions they are expressing. What makes this capacity special is mostly that it focuses on human vocal sounds, rather than on any other sounds that it hears.

Just what specific features of the sound lead to the identification of a sound as originating from a human voice has not been fully explicated. However, it is clear that frequency structure (the timbre and pitch range of the sound) provide the needed cues. Of course, acoustic perception is not foolproof.

String players often attempt to produce a "singing" tone from their violins or 'cellos. The guitarist Peter Frampton and others went so far as to use a device called a talk box to impart a vocal timbre to electronic sounds.

The moral to be taken from this is that the human voice is special, regardless of how it is used. Infants are naturally drawn to our voices, whether we speak or sing or giggle or cheer. Shower your children with a variety of vocal sounds. They will lap them all up.

Hollow tubes and empty cups

Both of my boys love hollow tubes (toilet paper or paper towel rolls are cheap and ubiquitous). In part it's their dad's propensity to make everything and anything into a musical instrument. Remember we have evolved over millions of years to favor our hands and voices for communication and entertainment. With that much working for us, we might as well have fun.

This game develops their motor skills, both gross and fine, their auditory acuity, and the supporting cognitive mechanisms that underly all of this activity. Take a tube or an empty cup or plastic container, anything with a hollow cavity. Put it to your mouth, and make a sound. You can even use your cupped hands over your mouth. Move the object closer or further away as you make a sound. Your child will be delighted at how the sound changes with and without the object (which serves as a resonant chamber), altering the sound by its own acoustic properties.

Try different objects, some plastic, some cardboard, some metal or wooden. Each shape and each material will affect the sound in different ways. Let them play with the objects as well. You'll likely find that they enjoy the game from the start, and that they quickly become adept at finding other appropriate objects. If you see your child picking up things and holding them out to you, they may want you to make a sound into it. This is a fun and easy game, which can be adapted to just about any place or circumstance.

Impoverished senses

One night #2 and I played a game. We often go into his bedroom, just before bed time, to quiet him down and get him ready to sleep. I close the door with the hall light still on, seeping just a bit under the door, and let him free. Normally, he wanders a bit, then turns back to fall in my lap. He repeats this exercise for a while, until he gets sleepy.

That night we varied the practice a bit. There was a small soft ball on the floor, so we played fetch with the ball, tossed or lobbed against the door. He's very familiar with the layout of the room, so it's pretty safe for him to move around in the dark, though it forces him to depend upon his memory much more than usual.

Since the room was dark, he wasn't able to rely on his normal procedure of simply watching where the ball goes. He could see shadows, and highlights at times. But he couldn't really see the ball in the air. So he had to depend upon the tell-tale thump of the ball hitting the door, to help him localize it. Then he had to use his sight in a more refined way than he is used to.

This game allowed him to hone these skills, both audition used for localization, and visual acuity from impoverished stimuli. He seemed to like it quite a bit. He would fetch the ball to me, drop it in my lap, then turn and face the door, anxiously awaiting the next thump. On another night, we used one of daddy's slippers (to make it a bit more challenging, but mostly because it was what was handy).

Needless to say, bedtime took a bit longer on those nights, as each time I thought we'd finished the game, he dutifully found the ball or the slipper, and carried it back to me for one more round.

Wordplay

My nearly 4-year old requested a game this evening as we drove to the grocery store. We've played it before, but I was pleased he remembered. The object is to say something that the other has to repeat back. Usually we use nonsense words, but you can use real words if you like, or little tunes, or rhythmic motives. It's a simplified variation on the old game of telephone, where each person has to repeat what they've just heard. Simplified because you don't have add something to the end each time. But the idea is the same: memory, imitation, and creativity. Just about anything you can do with your voice that can be imitated is fair game.

Try to pay particular attention to the intonation of your utterance, and see if that aspect is repeated as well. Pay close attention to what your child says on their turns, and try to match it as closely as possible. It's amazing the creativity that you'll hear from your child when it's their turn. The first time we played, my #1 had a tendency to make up such long elaborated babble, that there was no way I could keep up. But asking him to repeat what he said made the point. He's more reasonable these days.

You may find that your child repeats certain patterns or particular syllabic units. That's just great. It's not that different from the technique used by accomplished jazz improvisers. They have set patterns that they draw from. Your child likely will too. If you set up a nice paradigm for them, they might just use it as a template. For instance, I say: go-bldee ga-bldee blibldee boo, then it's set:

becomes the pattern for a while.

It may catch, or it may not. Being a careful observer however, you can detect which aspects of the sound are most salient for your child. At first keep emphasizing those aspects in the patterns you produce, so they'll gain confidence. As the game goes on, make it more challenging.

My son refuses to say "thank you," insisting that he can't pronounce "th". So we let him get away with saying "danke". But, to test him I came up with this game. As he got good with it, I made up words like thbling and bluth-kluh-gluth. It was quite amusing to hear him say those words, but still insist he couldn't pronounce "th". If only I had recorded him. Hmmm. Ideas for the next time.

A sound record

My mom recounts that when I was a child, she came up with an ingenious way to deal with my temper tantrums. She took out a tape recorder, and captured my actions on tape, then played them back for me at another time, so I could hear how silly I sounded.

The wonderful thing about technology is the great range of uses to which we can put it. Although, as I have said before there are certainly bad applications of technology, we should not be too hasty in lumping all technology together as bad. That sort of attitude is just prejudice applied not to people but to machines. The thought process behind such lumping is the same; it reflects a lazy mind, rather than progressive thinking.

In addition to recording your child in embarassing moments, recording devices can be marvelously useful. You can record your infant's babbling. What a wonderful record of their first attempts. But it's more than that. Play the recordings back to your child. They love telephones in part because they recognize the voice on the other end. It's a marvel to them. That's grandma they think. But I don't see her. They will be amused and surprised by hearing themselves on a recording as well. (Though don't be surprised if they cry the first time. It might startle and confuse them.)

But don't stop there. Record grandma, and grandpa, and daddy and mommy, and siblings, and friends and neighbors too. (Be sure to get their permission first! Clandestine spying we'll leave to others.) The idea behind many of the noisy, flashing toys that I often lament is not so bad in itself. Children are stimulated by the sounds and lights. The problem is that most toys present such a limited array of stimuli that the infant's brain quickly (REALLY QUICKLY) tires of them. (cf. the citation to Saffran, Aslin & Newport below). The trick then is to make the stimuli stimulating enough, without overstimulating the child.

The aim here is to create a balance between variety and familiarization. There must be variety to keep the brain engaged. However, if there is not also recognizable patterning, the child may fail to learn from the experience. The infant's brain is constantly seeking out patterning, recognition, comparison. Too much change, and they may focus on random aspects of the input. Too much similarity, and they will likely get bored with it. The first may lead to difficulties in concentrating, the second in unreal expectations of the world, and thus easy frustration when those expectations are not met.

Just as I have suggested earlier (here and here), you should work to find the balance between patterns and variations. Start simple, and observe your child. Make recordings of sound patterns, different rhythms or simple melodies (sung or played on an instrument), or different phonemes (essentially letter sounds). Have your friends or relatives repeat the same (or similar) patterns of sounds. Playing these recordings for your child may help them to focus on sounds themselves, without all the distractions of the live interaction.

Bear in mind however, first that they may have other distractions from the playback session (don't expect them to sit still for a long recording), and also that even an infant is well aware of the difference between a recording and live interaction (even over the telephone). They are keenly aware of how their actions and involvement should result in reactions from their interlocutors. So, play the recordings at times when you can sit with your child, or when you have a captive audience (quiet time, going down for a nap).

I recommend the new digital audio recording devices. You can find them online or through just about any local electronics retailer. Good quality budget models start at perhaps $40-60. I use higher end models ($200-300) because of the flash memory, extra features, and the added recording capacity. But these features are not be necessary for everyone.

They are small and easy to use. Lacking a cassette tape, they have fewer moving parts. Many have a rather long recording capacity, and provide ease in appending or recording over files. And being digital, they can readily be uploaded to your computer, edited and modified, then transferred to CD, or what have you.

Good luck, and have fun.

Xylophones everywhere

At a playground we visit weekly, there is a curving row of "stools," that can be used as stepping stones, or things to climb on. They're made out of metal. We found a tennis ball (there's a court adjacent to the playground), and decided to play with sounds. I bounced the ball on each one in sequence, noting the slight variations in pitch, repeating each with my voice: blunk...blink...blank...blunk. I picked up a stone, and proceeded to drop that as I had the tennis ball: plunk dudidunk...plank-dank...plink, etc.

Children are enamoured of the sounds they hear. How many of us or our children have picked up a stick to knock against the bars or planks of a fence as we walk by. The variations that we hear are quite subtle, and conducive to increasing our awareness of the sound environment we live in, and the physical characteristics that relate to acoustics. Talk to your children about the different materials (wooden sticks, stones, metal keys, rubber balls). Let them hear these differences as well. Let them handle the objects, and observe how they differ (softer, harder, pointier, smoother). Talk about the differences in the sounds that each produces (did you notice that the stone's sound was shorter than the ball's?) Time them if you like. Play with combining different materials (tapping metal with wood; wood with stone).

They will be learning about comparatives, about the meaning of these descriptors, about the nature of materials, about conductivity (why does the metal feel colder than the leaf?) and they will be learning how these materials cause differences in various domains (they feel different; they sound different). Make these points explicit in your conversations with them. They will learn to observe things carefully, and about how to articulate those observations.

Observing nature

"Will you teach me the names of the trees, Mama?" ... She taught me the names of the trees, the shapes of their leaves and trunks and crowns. In a week I was able to distinguish the different kinds of spruce and pines that grew near the cottage. I learned the pyramidal shape of the larch, the scraggly divided shape of the walnut, the drooping shape of the willow, the spreading bushy shape of the dogwood.

(Chaim Potok, In the Beginning, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.)

Going for walks is an especially beneficial activity to share with your children. Make the most of these walks by helping your children to observe things. There is no end to the lessons that can be learned.

Sometimes we go on a scavenger hike with a brown bag, to gather objects for collages. Each leaf can be handled. Every seedpod described. The different colors of flowers can be enjoyed. You can look for heart-shapes, or round ones. You can look for a particular number (four or five) and challenge your child to find as many objects with that number as they can: flowers with four petals, or leaves with five sections.

With all the collected objects, a little glue, and some paper, you and your child can make wonderful collages. Be creative. Make a heart-shaped picture out of the heart-shaped objects, or the shape of a tree out of bark and leaves.

Name the plants you see, or the shapes of rocks. When you're tired, find a clearing, and lie on the grass, looking up at the clouds, with a child lying on top of you. Point out what you see in the clouds, and ask them to do the same.

Through exercises like this, the child learns the skill of careful observation, comparing objects, finding similarities and patterns. You both get some fresh air and a good time. Making an art project afterwards helps aid the child's memory, motor skills, and creativity.