Experimenting with Babies - by Shaun Gallagher (Paperback)

About the Book

Babies can be a joy-and hard work. Now, they can also be a 50-in-1 science project kit! This fascinating and hands-on guide shows you how to re-create landmark scientific studies on cognitive, motor, language, and behavioral development-using your own bundle of joy as the research subject. Simple, engaging, and fun for both baby and parent, each project sheds light on how your baby is acquiring new skills-everything from recognizing faces, voices, and shapes to understanding new words, learning to walk, and even distinguishing between right and wrong. Whether your little research subject is a newborn, a few months old, or a toddler, these simple, surprising projects will help you see the world through your baby's eyes-and discover ways to strengthen newly acquired skills during your everyday interactions.

Book Synopsis

Babies can be a joy--and hard work. Now, they can also be a 50-in-1 science project kit!

This fascinating and hands-on guide shows you how to re-create landmark scientific studies on cognitive, motor, language, and behavioral development--using your own bundle of joy as the research subject. Simple, engaging, and fun for both baby and parent, each project sheds light on how your baby is acquiring new skills--everything from recognizing faces, voices, and shapes to understanding new words, learning to walk, and even distinguishing between right and wrong.

Whether your little research subject is a newborn, a few months old, or a toddler, these simple, surprising projects will help you see the world through your baby's eyes--and discover ways to strengthen newly acquired skills during your everyday interactions.

Review Quotes

"Experimenting with Babies is a wonderful book, giving parents a hands-on way to understand their baby's emerging mind. The experiments are easy, fun, and nicely annotated with the real science behind them. What a fabulous way for parents to get to know their new child!"
--Lise Eliot, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University and author of What's Going On in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life

"With the marketplace urging parents to buy all manner of things to make their babies 'smart, ' Gallagher's book offers parents a view based in science on how much babies really know and figure out on their own. Parents will have fun with this book and gain new respect and awe for their babies' amazing capabilities."
--Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., H. Rodney Sharp Professor, University of Delaware and coauthor of How Babies Talk, Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, and a Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool

About the Author

Shaun Gallagher, a father of two ongoing science experiments, is a writer and a former magazine and newspaper editor. He also runs the popular website Correlated.org, which analyzes statistical data to find funny and surprising correlations. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware