Your Baby's Brain Is 'Born-Ready' To Learn A New Language, Says New Study

Babies are more capable than you think. They learn several things about you and the world around them even before they are born. This includes food, emotions, and even the sound of your voice.

If a new study is anything to go by, infants are “born-ready” to learn a new language with the basics already in place.

Researchers found out that even if the baby was never exposed to a certain language – spoken or sign, they would still be able to identify with the same.

Iris Berent, professor of psychology at Northeastern, found in her study that an infant’s brains have been wired to learn the rules of a language. 

Now, this isn’t because of them listening to their mums talk for the first nine months of their life. Instead, it’s because that’s how the human brain has evolved, and this sets us apart from other species. 

Baby Brain Language Development Starts In The Womb

Data suggests that a baby’s brain begins to start deciphering the language spoken around them immediately after birth. Researchers wanted to see if the same rules apply when it comes to learning a sign language as well.

They wanted to determine if there were different rules applicable for learning sign language when compared to the spoken word.

The study concluded that much like spoken language, our brains have been wired to follow the same rules to comprehend sign language. 

“Human brains are language-ready,” says Berent.

Adding, “They’re not just speech-ready, they’re language ready. They’re ready to learn a language in all its different and diverse manifestations, whether it’s speech or sign. And it’s not just an artifact of living in utero for nine months. There is something apparently and possibly inherent about language that makes it particularly amenable to learning for human brains.”

Sign language is an important process of your baby’s growth and an early form of communication. Babies are first able to sign regularly from the age of eight months.

However, some researchers suggest that if you present sign language from birth, the infant can begin using it from as early as six months of age.

Baby Brain Language Development: Determining The Brain’s Response

Unlike the spoken word that the baby can hear in the womb, sign language can only be taught and communicated after birth and shows that the brain is learning. 

In order to determine the same, researchers decided to build upon an existing and successful linguistic study. Berent and her team presented the newborns with patterns of vocalisations.

This included strings of sounds containing two of the same sounds in repetition such as “gah, gah, bah,” or the ‘AAB’ pattern. With other babies, researchers opted for just “gah, bah” or the AA/BB repetition pattern. 

Researchers then found that the neural response differed notably when the vocalisations were in the repetition pattern as AA or BB. Berent says that the infants responded to this pattern to what they were perceiving as a linguistic rule. 

With the new study, Berent used the same procedure but replaced vocalisations with sign language. 

Conducted at the Université de Paris and the French National Centre for Scientific Research, the study looked at the brain activity of six-month-olds when presented with linguistic signs. The study used two different kinds of sequences – one with two identical syllables (AA), and another with non-identical syllables (AB).

The study concluded that the baby’s brain responded to the repetitive pattern (AA) more frequently when compared to AB sequences. The results were similar to the previous study.

The brain also showed more activity in the same area when exposed to the repetitive pattern. 

Berent says the study concluded showing the same pattern for speech and sign. This confirms that the brain used the same rules for both types of languages.

Brain Development Is An Ever-Evolving Process

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