Experiments reveal that newborn babies can already recognize their mother tongue, indicating that language learning may begin before birth.
New research suggests that newborn babies have the ability to recognize their mother tongue, indicating that language learning may start before birth. Previous studies have shown that fetuses can hear sounds towards the end of gestation, but this new research delves deeper into the specific language recognition capabilities of newborns. By studying the brain activity of newborns, researchers have discovered that babies show a preference for their mother’s voice and can even recognize the language spoken by their mother during pregnancy. These findings shed light on the early stages of language development and raise intriguing questions about the role of prenatal exposure to language.
Brain Activity and Language Recognition
Researchers at the University of Padua in Italy conducted experiments with 49 newborn babies, all of whom had French-speaking mothers. The babies, aged between one and five days old, were fitted with a cap containing electrodes placed near regions of the brain associated with speech perception. The researchers played recordings of the story “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” in English, French, and Spanish in different orders, with periods of silence in between.
Mother Tongue Recognition
The results of the study revealed that when the babies listened to the recordings in French, there was a significant increase in a type of brain signal called long-range temporal correlations, which is linked to speech perception and processing. This spike in neural activity was not observed when the babies heard the other languages. Furthermore, in a subgroup of babies who heard French last, the heightened neural activity persisted during the subsequent silence. These findings suggest that newborns may already recognize their mother’s native language as more important, providing a boost for learning their native language.
Implications and Future Research
The implications of these findings are significant, as they suggest that language learning may begin even before birth. The research team plans to expand their studies to include babies with mothers who speak different languages, particularly Asian or African languages, to determine the generalizability of their results. Additionally, they aim to investigate how the development of speech perception in the womb may differ in infants with atypical prenatal experiences, such as premature babies.
Everyday Speech as a Scaffolding for Learning
The study’s lead researcher, Judit Gervain, highlights the importance of everyday speech in a baby’s language learning process. Gervain emphasizes that even simple activities like talking to the belly or engaging in everyday conversations can serve as scaffolding for a baby’s language development. This suggests that exposure to language during pregnancy and early infancy plays a crucial role in shaping a child’s language abilities.
Conclusion:
The latest research on newborn babies’ language recognition provides valuable insights into the early stages of language learning. The findings suggest that babies may already recognize their mother tongue and show a preference for it shortly after birth. This indicates that language learning may commence before birth, with exposure to language in the womb providing the foundations for later language acquisition. Further research is needed to explore the generalizability of these findings and to understand the impact of different prenatal experiences on speech perception. Understanding the early stages of language development is crucial for supporting optimal language learning in infants and may have implications for educational practices in the future.
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