Little body, does that mean little brain?

It is said that good things come in small packages. But does this hold true for babies as well as presents?

Up until recently it was believed that babies knew just about nothing until they were around 9 months old, a theory that was credited to Jean Piaget. With the advance in technology that has taken place it is amazing to see what we now know that infants are capable of.

In the study conducted at the Babylab of London researchers were able to monitor not only the time a baby spent looking at a particular object or stimulus but were also able to gain an image of their brain

and monitor their pupil dilation. While I believe this is an ingenious idea I also believe that researchers may be giving slightly more credit to their research than may be necessarily due. 

While it may be true that babies spend more time looking at an object, for example a brightly colored train, I don't completely believe that it is because the know when it goes into the tunnel as a red train it should come out as a red train. I find it more likely that the baby is intrigued that there is a moving train on the TV screen and if you continue to allow the baby to watch the TV I believe that the infant will lose interest and no longer watch the train go into the tunnel. 

However this doesn't mean that I don't believe that babies aren't more intelligent than we give them credit for. There has to be a huge amount of untapped intelligence inside these little bundles of joy in order for them to learn so quickly. As with the last study conducted with the puppet and the box/toy I found it amazing that the infant was able to predict what was going to happen next, as it was a little confusing for me! 

(Baby Brooke)

With the advances in technology that are coming I think it will be not only interesting to further research babies brains, but also beneficial as it may be able to alert parents to learning disabilities or other problems that may occur in their child's life. All I know is that when it comes time for me to have a child I'm hoping there will be enough research done to help me figure out what the little tyke wants when he cries!