Reflection Paper: Insights from Alison Gopnik's TED Talk on Babies

This reflection paper analyzes Alison Gopnik's TED Talk on child intelligence, focusing on the cognitive abilities and learning processes of babies. The paper highlights Gopnik's arguments about children's rapid learning capabilities and their different approach to learning compared to adults, emphasizing their ability to focus on multiple things simultaneously. The author agrees with Gopnik's ideas, citing supporting evidence from studies on child behavior and language acquisition, like how babies mimic parents and learn words before speaking. The paper also discusses the importance of understanding children's thinking strategies and the significance of investing in their early development. References to relevant research, like Climie et al. (2019), Dweck & Bempechat (2017), and Wen, Clegg & Legare (2019), further support the arguments presented in the reflection.

Running head: REFLECTION PAPER
REFLECTION PAPER
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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In the TED Talk of Alison Gopnik, she elaborately explored the area of intelligence,
thinking capability and specifically brain functioning of children. Through her discussion, she
greatly covered various expectations of misunderstanding about children accompanying it
with various evidence proving just the opposite. She projected a different, completely
unexpected and unknown side of the babies' mind, which seems very fascinating as an adult
as we never really knew how and when we started learning and thinking (Gopnik, 2011). The
talk focussed on the very early stage of learning, which cannot even realize by us. Just
opposite of what people believe, children are the fastest learner as Alison explained the
untapped side of children's intelligence with proven evidence and studies. She presented
various studies and instances of birds, by relating it to the thinking and understanding
capacity of children (Gopnik, 2011). Children are the species, very different from adults in
accordance with Alison's Talk as they distribute their focus on multiple things for grasping
things to learn and contemplate in the process. On the other side, the adult brain can project
its focus on only one direction (Gopnik, 2011). In the Talk, Alison also presented the logic
behind human intelligence by leading back to the time we spent as children and dependent on
parents, which according to her and the studies conducted reflects the age of learning.
Although, I was not accustomed to the idea of child brain intelligence below the age
of 24 months with the learnings deduced from the TED Talk, my understanding regarding
children's understanding and decision-making capabilities sharpened. I agree with the
presented ideas in the TED Talk as every fact, statement or argument was logically proven by
an instance or study. I agree with the fact that we, as adults cannot anticipate the stage of
learning as it starts before we can recognize any brain function. The fast learning abilities can
also be backed by the fact that babies start copying their parents very quickly, not necessarily
through speech but through gestures and actions (Climie et al., 2019). I agree with the topic
and main ideas, children are often assumed to be not attentive but in reality, they can
remember various actions and situations occurring at the same time. Another interesting fact

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about this topic is that the intelligence of children is not only limited to their understanding of
a situation or copying actions as it is also applicable in their ability to speak (Wen, Clegg &
Legare, 2019). There can be no logical explanation on children learning words through an
impulse action as in reality, they start preparing speech way before they start speaking by
learning words from their parents and relating them to various situations and objects (Dweck
& Bempechat, 2017). I also agree with the idea of Alsion Gopnik about the strategy of
thinking like a child or adapting strategies of a child, which may involve observing
everything in front of us and testing ideas till we succeed. I truly believe that 'children are the
R&D division of human species', which rightly relates to our motive of investing in their
childhood for a better future of the world tomorrow.

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References:
Climie, E. A., Saklofske, D. H., Mastoras, S. M., & Schwean, V. L. (2019). Trait and ability
emotional intelligence in children with ADHD. Journal of attention disorders, 23(13),
1667-1674.
Dweck, C. S., & Bempechat, J. (2017). Children’s theories of intelligence: Consequences for
learning. In Learning and motivation in the classroom (pp. 239-256). Routledge.
Gopnik, A. (2011). What do babies think?. Ted.com. [Online] Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think.
Wen, N. J., Clegg, J. M., & Legare, C. H. (2019). Smart conformists: Children and
adolescents associate conformity with intelligence across cultures. Child
development, 90(3), 746-758.