Girls start believing they aren’t good at math, science and even computers at a young age — but providing fun STEM activities at school and home may spark interest and inspire confidence.A new I-LABS finds that, when exposed to a computer-programming activity, 6-year-old girls expressed greater interest in technology and more positive attitudes about their own skills and abilities than girls … Read More

Naja Ferjan Ramirez and Patricia Kuhl have published a review article titled “The Brain Science of Bilingualism” in Young Children, the journal of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The May issue of Young Children is entirely devoted to brain science, with the goal of connecting the latest brain research to educational policy and practice.  The article summarizes some … Read More

A favorite childhood pastime — swinging on the playground swing set — also may be teaching kids how to get along. The measured, synchronous movement of children on the swings can encourage preschoolers to cooperate on subsequent activities, University of Washington researchers have found. A study by the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) shows the potential of … Read More

I-LABS researchers published a first study to examine implicit self-esteem in both minority and majority elementary school children, the current findings advance our understanding of how implicit self-esteem and explicit academic self-concepts interact during development and are tied to real-world outcomes, such as achievement in school. Children internalize cultural expectations and academic stereotypes about their “in group” at young ages, and … Read More

A new MEG study by Naja Ferjan Ramirez was published in this month’s Developmental Science. Findings indicate that the dual sensitivity of the bilingual brain is achieved by a slower transition from acoustic to phonetic sound analysis. Naja’s photo from the study was featured on the cover of the magazine! Read more here

New research from I-LABS Allison Skinner suggests that preschool-aged children can learn bias even through nonverbal signals displayed by adults, such as a condescending tone of voice or a disapproving look.“ This research shows that kids are learning bias from the non-verbal signals that they’re exposed to, and that this could be a mechanism for the creation of racial bias … Read More

A study by I-LABS Onnie Rogers provides a glimpse into how children perceive their social categories.“ Kids are thinking about race and gender, and not just in terms of being able to identify with these social categories, but also what they mean and why they matter.” Read more here

Learning a new language is one thing that most babies can do better than adults, which makes language learning an excellent example of changes in neural plasticity across the lifespan. Despite this, some adults are better able to learn second languages than others, and researchers at the University of Washington have found that their secret may involve the rhythms of … Read More

New I-LABS findings reveal that a musical intervention helped babies learn to detect rhythmic patterns, a skill important for both music and speech. The study, published the week of April 25 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that a series of play sessions with music improved 9-month-old babies’ brain processing of both music and new speech … Read More

The latest I-LABS discovery reveals that bilingual baby brains have increased activity in executive function regions, suggesting early cognitive benefits to learning multiple languages. The new findings, published online April 4 in Developmental Science, underscore the importance of early childhood as the optimum time for learning multiple languages. The study is the first to use magnetoencephalography to compare whole-brain responses … Read More