-- Submitted by Jami Guimond, sixth grade, Whitehorse Middle School

A. People begin making meaning from words as babies, long before they can utter a single word themselves, says UW-Madison psychology professor Jenny Saffran.

"We think that starting around 6 months of age, babies notice that certain sounds tend to occur in the presence of certain objects and events, " said Saffran, an expert in infant learning.

Not surprisingly, then, the first words babies learn are common in their environment, such as mommy, daddy, cup or shoe. And Saffran 's research shows the word and object need only be paired a few times before the infant gets it.

In fact, 4-month-old babies can recognize the sound of their names and will turn their heads, even if they don 't necessarily know the name refers to them. "So really, really young babies have a fairly remarkable grasp of the building blocks of words, " she said.

As people get older, learning the meanings of abstract words, such as truth or beauty, gets more complex. "Those words are clearly not learned by linking a sound to an object in the world, " says Saffran. "To learn them, you have to know a lot more about your world and how your language works. "

Still, like babies, grown people seem to acquire many understandings of words long before they can formally use or define them. Defining words is particularly hard, even sometimes for words we know well, says Saffran. "Think about trying to define the simple word game. ' It's actually complicated. "

-- Produced in cooperation with University Communications

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