The AI program was way less cute than a real baby. But like a baby, it learned its first words by seeing objects and hearing words. Some ideas of language learning hold that humans are born with ...

A two-year-old can quickly link an object--whether a flashy rattle or a boring latch--to a word. Even a one-year-old can follow a parent's gaze to an object and match it with a word being spoken. But ...

As many educators and researchers will attest, there’s no exact science to choosing vocabulary words—no inherent reason the word “detest” is more important to teach than “despise,” or why “compassion” ...