Learning and the Brain Conference 2011: Don Massaro

Universal Literacy: The Digital Age Engages the Learning Brain
Dom Massaro
University of California, Santa Cruz
http://mambo.ucsc.edu/dwm.html
Learning and the Brain breakout session (PM) - February 17, 2011

Late Intervention
Multi-sensory Pattern Recognition = Speech
Perceiving Talking Faces: Value of the Face importance in vocal recognition


Baldi - See What I'm Saying
(http://mambo.ucsc.edu/psl/svs.mpg)


Vocabulary Knowledge is important to understand what we are teaching. Baldi was developed to help teach vocabulary.

Used to teach students that are hard of hearing to learn vocabulary successfully because he shows face movements, not just hearing a voice. The articulation is important.
Early Intervention:

Cost of illiteracy is $240 Billion because 75% people on welfare don't know how to read.

Goal is to have universal literacy at an affordable cost.
Theory that Reading can be learned just as naturally as speech. The current dogma is that speech is naturally learned and reading is learned artificially.

Critical Periods:
Auditory System
Visual System
Language System(s) (Speech, Sign, Reading)

What's Needed for Literacy? Written Language (See Things, Signal analysis, learn categories)

Have words projected as the caregiver speaks (incorporating a virtual learning environment) similar to closed captioning on TV. So that reading becomes natural from an early age.

Funding for early childhood literacy would help offset the literacy deficit.