Ideas change everything

The linguistic genius of babies

4,659,200 plays|

Patricia Kuhl |

TEDxRainier

• October 2010

Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxRainier, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

About the speaker

See speaker profile

Patricia Kuhl studies how we learn language as babies, looking at the ways our brains form around language acquisition.

About TEDx

TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." It supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community.

Find a TEDx event near you

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxRainier, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.