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
