Edward and Daniel are both contributing to science this week. Researchers at the university use local birth records to contact parents of children who are the right ages for their studies. We just happened to get one for each boy in the last couple of weeks. Edward's is Friday and Saturday, something to do with how hearing children learn words compared with children with cochlear implants. I can't wait to see how they handle his endless stream of questions about the new "nonsense" words they'll teach him for various objects. Then they'll see how many he remembers the next day.

Daniel was totally in his element in his study Monday afternoon--that element being food. This was studying how children name and generalize about objects--such as "yours" and "mine." The tester gave him three paper plates with food items arranged either in four globs or in a shape like a 'C,' 'T,' or '8.' He got to mess around with them and taste to his heart's content. These food items were things like applesauce, chocolate pudding, frosting, cheez-whiz and other things of that general consistency. There were only a few that he rejected, attempting to wipe them off his tongue. (I couldn't really tell what they were.) But for the most part he was gleeful, beaming from ear to ear with the food smeared the same distance.

After a minute or so of play, she took the plates and arranged two on a tray with a divider between them. Then she held up another that was either the same substance or the same shape as one of the two on the tray. She said, "Daniel, this is mine. Can you find yours?" and pushed the tray toward him. It seemed to me that he was picking whatever was in the same shape as what she held up, except for the things he didn't like the taste of. But I was also filling out some paperwork on his vocabulary at the time (and laughing at the huge mess he was making) so it was a little hard to keep up.

I try to participate whenever we're invited to these types of studies. Who knows what could be learned and how it might have an impact in years to come?

Here are the Arizona videos, as promised: