Study reveals that exposure to language in utero influences newborns’ brain waves, providing insight into early language development.
Language acquisition is a remarkable feat that human babies accomplish within their first year of life. However, the extent to which exposure to language before birth influences their ability to acquire a specific language has long remained a mystery. Recent research published in Science Advances suggests that newborn babies’ brain waves are synchronized with the language they were most frequently exposed to in the womb. This groundbreaking study sheds light on the role of prenatal language experience in shaping the functional organization of the infant brain.
The First Year: A Pivotal Period for Language Development
During their first year, babies’ brains become specialized for the sounds of their native language. While newborns are considered “universal listeners” capable of learning any human language, their brains gradually adapt to the specific language they are exposed to. While this period is crucial for language development, scientists have also speculated that prenatal experience may play a role in laying the foundation for auditory and speech perception.
Hearing Language in the Womb
Between five and seven months of gestation, a fetus begins to hear sounds from outside the womb. Within days of birth, infants have shown a preference for their mother’s voice and native language. Additionally, newborns can recognize rhythms and melodies they were exposed to in utero, and prenatal exposure to music may contribute to the development of their musical abilities. However, it has remained unclear whether the same can be said for language.
Unveiling the Connection: Brain Waves and Language Exposure
Benedetta Mariani, a Ph.D. student at the Padova Neuroscience Center at the University of Padova, and her colleagues conducted a study to investigate the relationship between newborn babies’ brain waves and language exposure in utero. The researchers recruited 33 expectant mothers who were native French speakers and used a technique called encephalography (EEG) to monitor the brain waves of their babies between one and five days after birth.
Understanding Neural Oscillations
In adults, neural oscillations, or brain waves, play a vital role in speech and language comprehension. Different frequencies of brain waves align with the rhythms of various speech units, such as syllables or individual speech sounds. The researchers aimed to determine if this brain architecture, observed in adults with extensive language experience, was already present in the newborn brain and if their brain waves could align with the rhythms of the language they heard most frequently in the womb.
Measuring Brain Waves during Sleep
During the study, the researchers played French, Spanish, and English language versions of the fairy tale “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to the sleeping babies. The babies wore caps with electrodes that measured their brain activity in areas associated with auditory and speech perception. The researchers recorded the babies’ brain waves during three minutes of silence before and after each language version.
Language-Specific Brain Signals
The researchers processed the EEG signals using a method that measured the degree of “memory” contained within them. The results showed evidence of language learning, indicating lasting changes in brain dynamics after exposure to the prenatally heard language. The sleeping babies who were most recently exposed to their mother’s native language exhibited brain signals associated with long-term speech and language learning.
Prenatal Language Experience and Developmental Outcomes
While prenatal language experience supports language development, it does not determine developmental outcomes. Babies who miss out on this language priming, such as international adoptees or infants born deaf, do not necessarily suffer developmentally. The study’s lead researcher, Judit Gervain, emphasizes that their research aims to understand how language and speech perception develop prenatally and in the first years of life, considering both prenatal and postnatal experiences.
The Future of Language Development Research
This study is part of a larger project led by Gervain to investigate language and speech perception in early development. The researchers plan to follow up with infants at various ages to understand how these neural mechanisms support later language development. The EEG technique used in this study can be applied across the lifespan, offering valuable insights into different stages of language development and milestones such as word learning.
Conclusion:
The latest research in Science Advances provides compelling evidence that language experience shapes the functional organization of the infant brain, even before birth. Newborn babies’ brain waves align with the language they were exposed to most frequently in the womb, highlighting the influence of prenatal language experience on early language development. This study opens the door to further exploration of neural oscillations and their role in language acquisition at various stages of life. By understanding the intricate relationship between language exposure and brain activity, scientists can gain valuable insights into the remarkable journey of language acquisition in infancy.
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