Babies begin to learn their native language in the womb!

DID YOU KNOW THAT…

Babies begin to learn their native language in the womb!

It was thought that babies were born without any knowledge about the outside world, but this is now being questioned and investigated. Many psychologists today believe that babies in fact comprehend inside the womb and can remember after they’re born.  They even go as far as saying that they actually recognize their mother’s voice!

It turns out that babies are capable of producing different cry melodies which are typical for the ambient language. This means that a Chinese baby will have a different cry melody to a French baby. Scientists believe that it is in fact during the last stage of pregnancy when the fetus begins to develop sensory and brain mechanisms.

If we take into account all of this information, babies can not only hear what you say, but listen to the same music and films as the mother does!

Research was carried out on 40 babies born in Stockholm and Tacoma. The babies listened to vocalic sounds from their mother language and in other languages. The interest that the babies showed was measured by giving the babies a dummy which was connected to a computer which at the same time measures the time the babies were sucking for.  The suction varied depending on the sound they heard. They sucked on their dummies for more time when listening to foreign sounds.

After learning about this latest discovery, I realized that there is so much more to learn about the mysteries of the human brain and its workings. 

Emma Milnthorpe