Summary: Communication is at the core of the human experience, even though effective communication takes a lifetime to learn. This program explores how we develop the arts of speech and physical expression to make ourselves understood and to understand others. Visiting a group of 25 three-year-olds, the film observes them learning as many as ten new words a day-some already grasping the first 1,500...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program explores the development of language during the first six years of life. While language development begins at birth with the sound of the human voice, caregivers need to provide the building blocks so that children can learn language skills during these first six years.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Do our brains store experiences from our first few months of life? What happens to children who witness disturbing events before age two? How does being unwanted affect a baby? This program explores the personal significance of memory and examines the developmental stages at which meaningful awareness is formed. Visiting a group of 25 children, the film observes them as they turn two years old...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: I want my diaper changed. "I want to go to sleep." These are two of many examples of what a pre-verbal child can communicate through American Sign Language. Using the work of researcher Joseph Garcia, founder of the business Sign with Your Baby, as a platform, this program illustrates the benefits and positive implications of introducing ASL to children regardless of whether their hearing is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program follows the physiological development of the human brain from conception through the growth of the neurological system in utero, to the moment of birth, when an amazing variety of brain functions are already apparent. The camera continues to follow a child to the age of eight, as a whole range of motor and cognitive skills appears-some as simple as focusing the eyes, others as...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Starting right from infancy, this program charts the development of language during childhood. Basic language acquisition, learned from rudimentary and higher-level child/caregiver interactions, is described. Aspects of competence that go beyond the purpose of simple communication are also considered, including the skill of using conversation for establishing and furthering social...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program asserts that the testing of a causal hypothesis involving cognitive development is best done through a combination of observational and experimentational methods. Kathy Sylva and Peter Bryant, both of the University of Oxford, and other researchers share their insights into categorizing and codifying patterns of play through observation, avoiding common experiment-related pitfalls...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program investigates the mind's remarkable ability to recognize people, to make sense of their expressions and body language, to perceive what they may be thinking, and then-if the moment seems right-to charm them. Viewers will discover why first impressions are so important, what happens when they "click" with someone, how to tell if a smile is genuine, and why a party is one of the most...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program focuses on how a brain grows from a fertilized egg and how our brains change, even after birth, right up to old age. The establishment of connections between brain cells occurs not only in the womb, but also after birth. These connections can be modified, or even abolished, in accordance with certain changes in the environment. Hence, the development of the brain is a little like...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Recent laboratory research indicates that emotional neglect of children during their first few years of life can have long-term biochemical consequences. In this outstanding documentary, anthropologists from Cornell and Emory Universities and other experts share their findings on the subtle biochemical link between parental attentiveness and the proper development of a child's brain regions...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Human beings were never born to read. This program seeks to understand how the brain, which has evolved no hardwired "reading center," made the leap to literacy; why reading well-crafted writing is so profoundly important to intellectual and emotional development; and whether the Internet, with its blogs and videos and games, is placing novels-a prime type of reading material for nurturing the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Statistically speaking, why have men and women not proved equally adept at the same things? In this program, researchers debate whether differences in brain architecture lead to a division of talents and aptitudes between the sexes-and draw some startling conclusions. To illustrate these differences, children are observed in classrooms, on the playground, and at home.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: The average person will speak approximately 370 million words in his or her lifetime-a simple fact. And yet the underlying structures-sociological, anatomical, developmental, intellectual-have proved to be some of science's most impenetrable mysteries. This program spotlights researchers who are unlocking the deepest secrets of speech: Deb Roy and the Human Speechome Project; Tecumseh Fitch and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: How do babies develop an understanding of the people and things that populate the world, and at what age do they begin to acquire it? This program examines Jean Piaget's and Melanie Klein's theories on infant mental representation. Examples of infant behavior, captured through mother/baby interactions and classic experiments such as basic and A-not-B search tasks, demonstrate different stages...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The nation's children are everybody's future, and what happens in those first three years, before school, really, really matters to that future, says child development expert Penelope Leach. In this program, ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer reports on the neurological connections that form in a child's brain during pregnancy and early childhood and the long-term effects of sensory stimulation and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The 100 billion cells that make up the brain communicate electrically over 1,000 trillion neural connections at up to 250 miles per hour-and from this sparking of electrical power grows the personality and its behavior. This program explores how personalities are shaped during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, exposing how traits such as extroversion and introversion develop. Additional...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Even during the first moments of life, baby girls and boys already behave differently. Combining case histories and scientific analysis, this program argues that the mixture of hormones in the womb "hardwires" the brain with a sex-aligned signature before birth, causing it to become distinctly female or male-or a mixture of both.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005