Friday, November 06, 2009

My Mind is Boggled

Babies' Language Learning Starts From The Womb: "From their very first days, newborns' cries already bear the mark of the language their parents speak, reveals a new study published online on November 5th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. The findings suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be their first language in the womb, and certainly long before their first babble or coo.

'The dramatic finding of this study is that not only are human neonates capable of producing different cry melodies, but they prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the ambient language they have heard during their fetal life, within the last trimester of gestation,' . . ."

1 comment:

Todd Mason said...

NPR dig a segment on this this morning...not too surprising, when one thinks about it, as much as the late-stage fetus can hear anything beyond the blood pulse of its mother and itself...and the amniotic shuffle...