Staff from the State of Washington and the City of Seattle learned about the innovative work at I-LABS during a visit held July 19. Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff, co-directors of the Institute, described brain development and I-LABS discoveries on how young children learn. Visitors also toured the MEG brain imaging facility and heard from the I-LABS Outreach team about how the Institute translates … Read More
I-LABS Welcomes 2016 Summer Interns
Four undergraduate students started their summer internship this week at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. Photo: Miriam Donner, Will Hodge, Riley MacAulay, Maria Venneri. With interests in psychology, neuroscience and education, the interns will spend the month of July working with I-LABS researchers and honing professional development skills. The I-LABS Outreach team organizes the internship each year with the goal … Read More
Ask I-LABS Outreach: Finding Surprising Moments to Read to Kids
How can busy parents fit enriching, brain-building moments that come from reading to children into an already packed schedule? One parent talks about how she made reading to her daughter part of her routine. My enthusiasm for reading goes back a long way. My father likes to tell the story of how I used to toddle up to him as a young … Read More
Andrew Meltzoff Receives Koffka Medal from Germany for ‘Extraordinary’ Work
Andrew Meltzoff, the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair and co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, has been awarded the Kurt Koffka Medal. Bestowed each year by Giessen University in Germany, the award honors scientists who “advanced the fields of perception or developmental psychology to an extraordinary extent.” Meltzoff received the award during a ceremony at Giessen … Read More
I-LABS Outreach Joins Parent Blog Network
Parenting tips, ideas for free child-friendly outings, and even advice on how caregivers of small children can find time to take care of themselves—these are all recent topics of a new blog launched by Educare Seattle. As one of the blog’s contributors, the I-LABS Outreach team will provide monthly blog posts that give practical strategies for making I-LABS research useful … Read More
Success in Second Language Learning Linked to Genetic and Brain Measures
A new I-LABS study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates a relationship between genes, the brain and human learning. The study, published the week of June 13, 2016, shows that the final grades that college students received in a second-language class were predicted by a combination of genetic and brain factors. Variations in the gene … Read More
World Science Festival Features ‘Brain-to-Brain’ Research
Chantel Prat and Andrea Stocco, faculty researchers at I-LABS, will speak on their breakthroughs in brain-to-brain communication at the 2016 World Science Festival. With collaborators in computer science, Prat and Stocco’s brain-to-brain project has garnered headlines around the world as a leader in discovering how to use technology to help two human brains exchange information directly. The team’s latest achievement, published … Read More
White House Event on Dual Language Learners Showcases I-LABS
The White House Regional Summit on Dual Language Learners, held June 2 in Miami, represents increasing national interest in expanding high-quality early learning opportunities for dual language learners—children who are learning more than one language at the same time. A growing number of young children in the U.S. have a home language other than English, but early childhood programs often … Read More
Ask I-LABS Outreach: How Do Babies Learn Two Languages at Once?
Learn the science behind the linguistic genius of babies, and get tips on how to nurture multilingual development in young children. Very early childhood is the best time to learn multiple languages. Children who experience two languages from birth typically become native speakers of both—something that rarely happens in adulthood. How do babies do it? At I-LABS, I study brain … Read More
Brain Pattern Predicts How Well an Adult Learns a New Language
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