A power couple in neuroscience, professors Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff were in Hong Kong recently to give a talk on their respective areas of expertise - emotional quotient andintelligence quotient - and the role of each in language acquisition.
The US researchers, who have accumulated a vast amount of data on how babies learn, have presented their findings not only to the Education Bureau, but also to the Clinton and Obama administrations, as well as governments and school boards across Europe and the US.
Language is not the same as communication. Babies can cry to communicate their needs, but until they are able to think about, play with and use words, they have no language skills. Language allows us to talk about the past and project our thoughts into the future. Language acquisition is the most complex brain process.
