Blog #10...

One thing I learned and found interesting in chapter nine (thinking and language) were the different stages of language. At four months, humans already begin to show signs of language developing. They call this the babbling stage. The can discriminate speech sounds and also read lips. By reading lips, babies are beginning to develop receptive language. I find this amazing how quickly humans learn. We often take speech for granted, and we often assume we were completely oblivious when we were children, but they are suprisingly aware of what is going on. At 10 months, babies start babbling sounds that resemble words moreso than just vowels. A few months later, around the age of one year, babies start learning and remembering words. They call this the one-word stage. They are often able to associate names with what they see or want, but by only using a single word. Around teh age of two years, these chidren begin the two-word stage and telegraphic speech. They create two word sentences that generally contain a noun and a verb. From this age, speech continues to increase and developes rapidly into complete, grammattically correct, sentences. The stages seem obvious, but I do find it fascinating that all children learn around the same pace. Also, I find it interesting how quickly we are able to learn. We are constantly associating things in order to remember them at a later date. This process of learning never ends.

I think I am a very emotionally intelligent person. I am often aware of how people are feeling or the mood they are in simply by looking at them. I often know how to approach a person based off of the mood they are giving off. My strength in emotional intelligence has made my bond with friends and family tighter. Since my friends and family know that if they come to talk to me, they can trust me to have good insight or understanding, they rely on me more. I like having this quality because I find a way to relate to everybody. I like the feeling I get when I help a close friend through a difficult time. I think it is also extremely important to have this quality, especially if one spends a lot of time with people. Any person that holds a profession that has a lot of interaction with other humans, such as teaching, secretarial, business, marketing, or nursing, should be somewhat emotionally intelligent. I believe emotional intelligence and communication go hand and hand, and one cannot be successful without the other.

Something I learned and found fascinating in chapther 10 was that twins often share the same amount of intelligence. It said that when two identical twins take an IQ test, their scores seem as if the same person took the test twice. I find this amazing because although the identical twins hold the same genes, you would think that they hold the power to pursue their intelligence. I would assume that two identical twins would learn at seperate rates simply because they each have their own will. Because of this, I never would guess that their scores would be so capatable. It also said that although fraternal twins do not hold the same genes, their scores are often closer than two siblings would be. I find this fascinating as well because fraternal twins, in reality, are no different than any two siblings. The book explained that fraternal twins' scores are often compatable because the twins areoften compared and treated more alike throughout their lifetimes.