A research study (press release available here) by the Georgetown University Medical Center has discovered that boys and girls use different parts of their brains to process basic aspects of grammar. Their conclusion is thus gender does play a crucial role in the acquisition and usage of language.
The study, by Michael Ullman, PhD, and Joshua Hartshorne, was published earlier this year in the journal, Developmental Science.
In their study, they observed 10 boys and 15 girls, aged 2 to 5. The results they found were that girls relied more on their declarative memory while the boys were using a rule-governed system. The children were observed in their use of regular and irregular past-tense forms. Thus, the girls were using “holded” and “blowed” instead of “held” and “blew”.
They also found evidence that adult women use more declarative memory than adult men in the use of language. This means that though both genders are doing the exact same thing, they are actually using different neurocognitive brain processes to do it.
Well, the study is definitely interesting though this is still a preliminary study. We might have to re-look at how we teach Matthew and a different way to encourage him to learn.
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