How babies learn to speak: The science of early language development

Of all the creatures in the animal kingdom, only one has the ability to communicate through speech. The human

baby is born to speak. The first two years are a journey full of exploration and joy. But even before being able to

utter a single word, the baby is already busy experimenting with communication. Making noises, babbling,

gesturing, listening and imitating until they finally master the ability to articulate complete words. Let's

accompany the human baby on this journey. Speaking. The process of learning to

speak begins long before the baby is born. The fetus experiences all kinds of sensations in the mother's womb. An

ideal environment for the sense of hearing. By 24 weeks, the fetus 'inner ear has developed and can already hear

sounds. The sound of the mother's heartbeat and even more so the sounds of the outside world. The loudest of

all, even louder than the background noise of the womb, is the mother's voice. In the following months of

gestation, the fetus becomes familiar with the voices of both parents. This is the beginning of constant

communication between the baby and the outside world. The baby comes into the world ready to communicate and at first

the best way is to cry. This gets an immediate response. Crying is an involuntary act that shows distress.

The baby cannot yet make other sounds because his mouth is small, his tongue is large and at this age his larynx is

too high to prevent him from choking. Oh my god. But although Heeder's cries are involuntary, his mother responds,

baby. It is the first way for the little one to know that the sounds she makes are a

means of communication and that when she cries someone hears her. When Heeder hears her mother's voice, she is

immediately calmed down. Research shows that from the first days of life, babies prefer the human voice to any

other sound. But what is surprising is how accustomed they are to language. Janet Weger places 12-hour-old Marisa

in a carrycot. She puts a pacifier in her mouth connected to a computer that records

the frequency and intensity with which the baby sucks. Dr. Werker and her colleague Tracy Berns wanted to know

whether, just hours after birth, a baby would prefer its parents’ native language to a foreign language it had

never heard before. Marisa’s parents speak only English. It is the language she heard in the womb. Marisa listens

to a tape of two languages, English and Tagalog. A language from the Philippines. The actual words are

filtered out and the language can only be distinguished by its cadence. Tagalog is played first. When Marisa

hears this language she has never heard before, her response is very weak. But when she hears English, the language of

her parents, she reacts completely differently. The intensity and frequency of sucking increases and when

the tape switches back to Tagalog, it decreases. This reveals two astonishing facts: that babies begin to learn the

properties of language in the womb and that by birth they prefer the intonation of their native language to

that of unfamiliar ones. Six-week-old Rebecca turns her head toward the sound of her mother’s voice. At this age,

Rebecca spends her time listening and absorbing. She has to rationalize all the sounds she hears. She learns that

the clink of a spoon is different from a cough, and that a cough is different from the sound of a bird. In this

chaotic, noisy world, from the moment a baby is born, he has the uncanny ability to distinguish between the

sounds of speech, that unique vehicle of communication that sets humans apart from other animals.

In fact, from the moment a baby enters the world, he is endowed with this exceptional ability. But new research

shows that they know something even more extraordinary. Nelson was born less than 24 hours ago. During his 9

months in the womb, he has heard his parents communicate in English. As in the previous experiment, his pacifier

is connected to a computer that records the frequency and intensity of his response. The purpose of Dr. Rusen's

experiment is to see if at this early age the baby is able to distinguish between the different parts of speech.

Nelson listens to a tape containing two lists of words. The first is a list of prepositions and articles, words that

have no meaning on their own, such as to, in, or it. As Nelson listens, the computer records

his reactions. The second is a list of content words, such as nouns and verbs, parts of speech that convey meaning.

When Nelson hears content words, his level of reaction increases dramatically. This study has been

repeated with babies in many different languages with the same astonishing results, that even at birth the baby is

able to distinguish words that convey meaning from those that do not. The repertoire of sounds of the 3-month-old

Fénix has just expanded. His larynx has finally descended, and at this age he is absorbed in a

conversation with his mother. When Fénix vocalizes, his mother responds by confirming the communication, giving

meaning to his expressions. Fénix and his mother do not only exchange voice or words, but also facial expressions

and, above all, glances. They imitate each other's facial expressions, they exchange smiles.

They imitate each other's facial expressions. They exchange smiles. The mother speaks, the baby responds, a

rhythm is established. These are the basic elements of conversation, but human communication

is complex, and what researchers are discovering is how early infants understand the cues for interaction.

Humans communicate with much more than just words. What are the non-verbal elements that infants learn to read on

another human face? To answer that question, Darwin Miwa conducted a series of four studies. For

the first experiment, Rachel’s mother sits across from her daughter, talking, gesturing, and trying to get her

attention. Rachel, age 5 months, seems to enjoy what she is telling her mother . Suddenly, her mother’s face freezes

. Rachel smiles, makes sounds—all in an effort to try to communicate with her mother. When she sees responses,

she becomes frustrated. Darwin Miwa concluded that the reason for her upset was that her mother had broken the line

of communication without warning. In the second part of the experiment, Bridget, age 6 months, sits in front of

a television screen and watches a projected image of her mother, who is sitting in another room.

Bridlet laughs as she recognizes her mother's face and voice. Hi. Hi. Then something unexpected happens. An

image of her mother is projected upside down. Bridlet stops smiling. Upside down. Mom

doesn't look like Mom at all. Bridget can't interpret the inverted image as a face. The face becomes a peculiar

object. No longer able to communicate with her, Bridget becomes impatient. In the third of the four parts of the

study, little Rachel looks at a television monitor showing a pre-recorded image. It is a researcher

with a happy face and a happy voice. Rachel is visibly delighted. But when the computer shows a sad face

accompanied by a sad voice, Rachel's smile fades and she becomes a little more serious. Suddenly the situation

changes. The happy face is accompanied by a sad voice. Rachel seems confused. She knows that

something is not right. And when the sad face is projected with the happy voice, she reacts with the same

confusion and loses interest. The researchers concluded that at a very early age, babies are well aware that

emotions are expressed both by the face and the voice. They also know that the face and voice should convey the same

mood. The last part of the experiment focuses on eye contact, which is essential in

human communication. Babies instinctively know that eye contact is one of the ways to capture the interest

of adults and maintain a relationship. Darul Miwa wanted to see how a baby reacts when eye contact is interrupted.

Aston's mother continues talking without changing anything except her gaze. At first, Aston tries to regain

his mother's attention, but when he can't, he gets angry. The researchers saw that something as

small as the eyes play an essential role in human interaction. The human baby is born to be a citizen of the

world. He has an innate, astonishing ability to learn any language on earth. But if babies are born with a knack for

all languages, how do they become what researchers call specialists in a language linked to a culture? This is

the question that intrigued the researchers. Six-month-old Macio sits on his mother’s lap. A researcher

sits across from him and holds his attention with a colorful toy while two sounds are played on a tape. One is va

and the other is da, a sound that is only used in indie and that most English speakers cannot distinguish

from the English sound da. During the initial preparation period, a toy bunny in a large glass box next to Macio

lights up each time the sound da is heard. When the sound va is heard, the bunny

disappears and Mawu turns to the researcher. The process continues until Macio learns to associate the change

from va to da with the bunny. Mau even turns his head prematurely when the researchers delay the

appearance of the bunny. Matthew is now ready for the next phase of the experiment. A new tape is played, this

time with two different da sounds that are only used in indie. Although they are completely different

sounds, an adult who does not know indie would not be able to distinguish them.

But Mau immediately turns his head towards the bunny when he hears the change from da indie to the other.

Although he has never heard Indie spoken, the researchers confirm that at 6 months he is still the universal

listener, capable of distinguishing all sounds. Enma, who is 4 months older than Macio, comes to the laboratory for

the first time. After a similar preparation to Macio, he is presented with the same problem of distinguishing

between the two sounds da in Indie. But at this age, Enma, whose parents only speak English, does not react when

there is a change from one to the other . She is more interested in the toy that

Velante has than in the bunny. This leads the researchers to the conclusion that at 10 months the baby stops being

the universal listener and like the adults of the species does not distinguish the difference between the

two sounds. What happens in the baby's brain between 6 and 10 months? Why does it lose its ability to distinguish

sounds from another language? It’s not that the baby loses this ability, but rather that the brain sorts through

the chaotic world of sounds and selects those from its own language. It begins to filter out sounds that the baby

doesn’t hear in its environment. This makes the human baby unable to distinguish sounds from other languages

. But what happens if the baby is exposed to a second language during this period? That’s what the

researchers in Patcool’s lab were trying to find out. Children between the ages of 9 and 10 months visit the

lab for a series of 12 sessions during which they will listen to games and stories in Mandarin. Although Mandarin

is not her native language, Delini, 9 months old, gets used to hearing it. She doesn’t miss a thing and enjoys

the story that Dr. Wimy reads to her. After 12 sessions, she will be tested again to see if she has absorbed any

Mandarin. Macio, 9 and a half months old, has finished the 12 sessions and returns for the test. He is wearing a

cap with electrodes connected to a computer. It will record the electrical activity of his brain as he reacts to

sounds. As the test begins, a researcher’s visual game captures Macio’s attention and makes him sit

perfectly still. Two sounds are repeated over a speaker. They represent two different words in Mandarin Chinese

. An adult who has not grown up speaking Mandarin cannot distinguish between the two sounds. But Matthew has

heard Mandarin during the sensitive period, when most children’s brains begin to filter out sounds that are

part of their native language. When his brain activity is replayed on the computer, the two lines on the graph

clearly show that he can distinguish between the two Mandarin sounds. The results of the study suggest that a

child raised with more than one language can learn the sounds of both languages, but it is the ability to

reproduce the sounds that drives the next stage of the journey to speech. Knowing what sounds are possible in

their language allows the baby to learn where one word begins and another ends. Page’s mother speaks to him in the

same way that all mothers around the world speak to their babies. It’s what linguists call baby talk, or baby

language. But whoever speaks it, it has some clear characteristics. A sing-song tone. Her voice is higher.

And her sentences are reduced to short phrases. Babies respond clearly to the sound of this comforting language. As

her mother exaggerates words, stretching out vowels, 5-month-old Page builds an acoustic map of her native

language and repeats the words, her mother helps Page learn them, emphasizing the most important,

meaningful words. What mothers do instinctively is communicate the essentials of language. And while the

potential for speech is there at birth, its development depends on learning from those around her. So communication

is both nature and nurture. Just as adults practice singing in the shower, babies love practicing language in the

bathtub. Ela, 9 months old, babbles. At first, babies of all cultures babble

the same way. Da da ba ma. Ah, but by 9 months, like Ela, her speech sounds narrow down and focus on those

of her native language. She may not seem to say anything, but she's trying really hard. He is practicing the

sounds of the language he hears around him. By playing with the sounds, he also

listens to what she says. It is called Sound-Mouth Association. When his mother says his name, he

listens to her. Suddenly he is able to reproduce the sounds and he is delighted.

Imitation and repetition are the keys to learning a language. But babbling is just one of Ela's ways of expressing

herself. The baby has another essential weapon that is inseparable from communication.

Long before a child learns to speak, he already knows that communication is much more than sounds and words. A

large part of feelings, intentions and desires can be conveyed through gestures.

Some gestures are easy to understand, but there is one that is special. Pointing represents a great mental step

for the baby. The child only understands what it means to point when he begins to crawl and wants to draw

attention to something. By pointing, Aaron is having a conversation with his parents. Pointing is such an important

gesture that it has been the subject of much research. Dr. Amanda Budwar's studies focus on

what exactly a baby understands when he points. Do babies understand that there is a

connection between the person pointing and the object? Eight-month-old Bob has been watching Amanda point and look at

a teddy bear over and over again. When Dr. Budwar sees that Bob is getting bored, she moves on to the testing

phase of her study. She changes the position of the toys. When Dr. Budwar points to the teddy

bear, even in a new position, Bob shows no interest. He is tired of looking at the teddy bear.

But when she points to the ball, Bob's attention returns because she is now pointing to a new object. His

attentiveness suggests that he realizes that it is not the hand that matters, but the object she is pointing to.

Pointing is a uniquely human communication gesture. When humans see a pointing finger, they know that they

are going to see something interesting. They just have to look in the direction in which it is pointing. No other

creature in nature, not even primates, understands what humans mean by pointing. They will look at the finger,

but not at the thing it is pointing at. Pointing is also how humans learn the names of things, but simply pointing is

enough for a baby to learn new words. That's the question Amanda Boodw set out to investigate in this experiment.

They invited 13-month-old Max into the lab. Dr. Woodward and researcher Ashley Brown showed him an object with a

made-up name. Both researchers looked at and pointed to the object when Ashley said the name.

Max was then asked to pick up the object. He quickly learned the name of a new object.

Max was then shown another object. This time Amanda Boodward continued to look and point at the object, but Ashley,

who was naming it, looked in another direction. Max was asked where to focus his

attention. Under these conditions, Max would never understand what the word Dax was referring to.

Research clearly shows that in order to learn new words, babies must be guided by the pointing finger and the eyes of

the person speaking. For deaf people, pointing is closely linked to communication. Kesia, 10 months old,

and Erika, 20, are friends. Both are daughters of deaf parents whose only means of communication is sign language

. Kessia’s mother points to an apple and teaches her the sign for it. Like all talking parents, she emphasizes

important words like names and repeats them over and over. Although Erika has fewer than 100 words in her spoken

language, she has a large gestural vocabulary. Signing is easier than articulating words. Controlling the

hands is less complicated than coordinating the tongue, lips, and jaw. In fact, the brain centers that control

physical movements develop before the speech centers. When Erika sees a dog approaching, she starts patting her

thigh. This is the sign for dog. She keeps repeating the sign with excitement. Even Kesia, who is only 10

months old, can learn. This suggests that imitation plays a very important role in learning a language. By the

time little ones are almost a year old, they have learned to interpret facial expressions and gestures. All in an

attempt to maintain communication channels. But it is said that for babies, the main driver of learning is

imitation. As if Emily, 10 months old, wouldn't know what to do with the phone . This need to imitate is key to

learning a language. Even before learning to say a word, they imitate the sounds of the language they hear in

their environment. Dr. Andrew Melsov tries to explain how babies learn to communicate. Emma, 18

months old, watches Dr. Melsov play with a series of objects. He in turn watches what Emma does with them. Emma

imitates the action for this study. Dr. Melsov has purposely chosen things that Emma has

never seen before, things that are not so easy to make work. Although the objects are increasingly strange, Emma

imitates the actions in detail. Dr. Melsov believes that imitation is the first way of communicating between

adults and children. Parents often think that their child has understood something when they imitate it.

Not only does he understand what to do with the objects, he also understands the rules of the game. They take turns.

The exchange that is the essence of all conversation. Dr. Melsov shows Emma the orange box again.

This time he doesn't let her try and asks her to leave. He wants to see if she will remember

the lesson. An hour later, Emma returns. The power of imitation is incredible.

Imitation and turn-taking are the foundations of imitation. But there are more subtle aspects to it as well.

How does a baby understand when other people have something to say to her? What signals does a baby learn to

interpret as communication? To study this question, Susan Johnson designed an experiment to discover the sights

that infants seek. Jina, 14 months old, sits on her mother's lap. She watches intently as

the researcher communicates with a green puppet. The interaction follows the same

pattern as a conversation. The researcher speaks and the puppet makes a sound as if in response.

After all, communication works in two directions. Jina follows the exchange between researcher and puppet,

anticipating what each will say. Then the researcher leaves. Jina is left with the strange character. After

an awkward silence, Gina initiates an interaction. The puppet responds. A conversation develops.

Jina babbles and the puppet waits for the right moment and imitates the rhythm of what the child has said. Jina

has never seen this puppet before. How does she know that it is something she can communicate with? Susan Johnson

believes it is because from a very young age, children recognize the give and take of a conversation, the

underlying structure of communication. After a year, the baby begins the exciting step from simply articulating

sounds to pronouncing whole words. In the first 18 months, the child has a working vocabulary of between 50 and

100 words, but understands much more than he can say. They can respond to questions and

follow simple instructions. Almost 70% of their first words are names, names of things they know from their daily

lives or things that are truly unforgettable. Food and body parts take the cake. What is he doing there?

That's brushing. But there are several terms in a baby’s vocabulary that are nearly universal by this age.

Gone. And gone. There’s an equivalent in every known language. Some express concern.

And others are saved for disaster. At this stage of development, a baby’s brain is busy associating sounds with

words and then with meanings, trying to understand language. But between 18 months and 2 years, a mysterious

language event occurs that catapults a baby from the infant phase into toddlerhood. Researchers still can’t

explain a phenomenon that usually occurs starting in the first year and a half of life, when babies suddenly take

control of the world of words. The sounds they’ve been practicing and the meanings they’ve attributed to

them seem to connect. They suddenly grasp the idea that everything has a name. A new phrase enters their

vocabulary. What is that? It’s a huge mental leap. The phenomenon is called the language explosion.

What does a baby look for to speed up the learning of new words? To find out, Susan Jones and her colleagues

conducted a special study. Maya is 17 months old and just starting to walk. She is in the early stages of

learning language and her vocabulary is about 50 words. This is the first of eight weekly sessions with a researcher

. They show her a series of objects that they have given made-up names. They have the

same shape, but the materials and colors are different. By participating in these sessions,

Maya learns to pay special attention to shape. The researchers wanted to see if shape helps her learn new words. Malory

is almost two years old, has completed the eight weekly sessions and is now back for testing. They

show her an object and tell her it is called a wak. They then show her several objects that have similar

features, but only one has the same shape. When they ask her to find another wag,

Malory identifies it by its shape rather than any other feature. The researchers stated that shape is

crucial for learning the names of things. In fact, these studies showed that the vocabulary of children who

were trained to pay special attention to shape was up to three times larger than that of other children.

During the language explosion, children move into the next phase of language development. They move from single

words to mini-sentences of two words. Pronunciation is still far from perfect and often requires someone close to

translate. Come on. It’s an exciting time. New perspectives open up, their play

changes dramatically. Adults often see themselves reflected in their actions and words. Yummy.

Imagination blossoms in an amazing way when language is introduced into play. It takes a lot of effort, but it’s

worth it in the end. Delicious. The human animal is the only one with the gift of speech. When children begin

to talk, their inner world becomes visible. How they reason, solve problems and plan actions is reflected

in the way they put words together to express increasingly complex thoughts. The day ends and Miranda gets ready for

bed. At 22 months old, she is in the midst of her language explosion. This is a

time when a human baby learns a minimum of one new word every 90 minutes. By the time they are two years old,

they are using around 300 words. and understand about 1,000. These early years are the critical time

for learning a language, and early interaction with parents lays the foundation for their communication

skills. Like other babies, Miranda has learned to speak by listening to and imitating the adults around her. The

games and songs of childhood are very important in this process. Bedtime is a time for quiet and alone time. Miranda

takes advantage of the moments before falling asleep to practice what she has learned during the day. She

must process a flood of new words and new concepts. Her baby days are over. She is now on

the threshold of toddlerhood. In less than two years, Miranda has done an incredible amount of work. She has gone

from making sounds to babbling syllables and finally articulating words. She

is learning that language can be played with and words can be put together in unexpected ways that allow us to think

of new ideas. Language is a fundamental part of being human. It allows us to express feelings, remember the past and

imagine the future. For the baby, a new way of relating to the world is about to open up,

something he can't even imagine.