Appendix 1 on Module 6 (page 3) of Learning Processes by Dr. G. Gunawardena of Sri Lanka for the Commonwealth Secretariat stated that the automatic systens in the mind seem to be evident in the very rapid learning that infants do when they learn to crawl and talk.
Learning to crawl
Learning to crawl
- at an infant you can see a strong element of trail and error
- it seems programmed to do so
- certain amount of experience of crawling has taken place
- seems that an automatic system in the brain is switched on
- all the movements from then on are absorbed into the system and crawling becomes competent and unconscious
- from the moment that the automatic system is switched on, all the additional crawling knowledge (skill) is acquired at lightning fast speed.
- the children don't actually learn what their parent tell them to say, but what their parents, grandparents or careers say and do seem to cause children to start experimenting with language.
- the things they hear from their parents seem to trigger off underlying patterns of grammar which are different from the speech of the parents.
- like crawling, infant the newly talking infant seems to develop through a series of experimental activities which have been triggered by a perception of what's going on around her.
- process seems to be lifelong, the grammar seems to develop very rapidly, as long as the child is listening to language and engaged in conversations.
