SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS – FALL 2026 VIDEOS

Coordinators: Jim Brook, Steve Allen, Judy Weiss

Science and Scientists covers a wide range of scientific topics – and the stories of the women and men who have, in the past or present, engaged in the pursuit of knowledge about the world in which we live.

To view a video click on the link above its description.

SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS
First Language Acquisition: Looking Under the Hood

Presenter: Anna Szabolcsi
Presentation Date: September 16, 2026

• Language Acquisition Video

How children acquire their mother tongues is familiar to most of us. But much of the process is invisible to the naked eye (ears), because speech production significantly lags behind pattern detection and comprehension. Clever experiments reveal that, way before they start speaking at all, children confidently distinguish speech sounds and identify abstract patterns like AAB vs. ABA and can tell apart subject and object in English sentences at the stage when they only utter single words. Figuring out the meanings of words, which children do mostly without caregiver help, is another challenge that requires some solid heuristics.

In addition to the above, we touch on the critical period for first language acquisition, a window that closes around 6 or 7 years of age. Critical periods for first exposure also apply to the development of the visual system and to birds’ acquisition of species-specific songs.