How Does Language Develop in the Brain of a Baby?

Language can be learned naturally. Each human being starts learning language from the womb. From womb to one year of age is very important for language learning neurologically in humans. During this period kids are learning the native language naturally. Can you believe that a kid is crying in his native language? Yes, it’s true. Scientific research shows that infants’ cry melody is in the shape of their native language pitches. (Ref: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19896378/)

Our habit of speaking with the infant is creating an image in the infant’s brain. Generally, when we speak to infants we use the same words many times, that words are creating an image in an infant’s brain. Such repetition of words also helps in keeping the infant’s attention more focused. The pitch of words also shows our emotions through words. More Stress on different syllables is also creating an image in an infant’s brain. Such infant-directed speech is known as statistical learning. Lullabies are also doing the same. Lullabies also have repeating words with stress on different syllables. So, our native language talk during pregnancy helps in language learning. After birth, till one-year repeated words & stress on syllables also make language learning easy. Such talking also makes neurological connections in infants’ brains about joining syllables for long words.

Generally, during the first year of life infant is learning language through perception. During the first 3 months from birth, infants are developing a perception of phonetics contrast and during that time infants can produce non-speech words. After 3 months of age, the infant can produce vowel sounds. By age of 12months, the infant develops native language consonant perception.

“One of the primary jobs for a baby during the first months of learning is to build what we call a sound inventory of the language to which he or she is exposed.”
― Albert Costa, The Bilingual Brain: And What It Tells Us about the Science of Language

One more important factor for language learning is the phoneme map. In normal kids phoneme map for the native language develops between 6–12 months of birth. A phoneme map is an image of acoustic features in the brain for each letter of the native language spoken by people around the baby. Because of this phoneme map learning, kids can differentiate between native & non-native languages. The last 4 months in the womb are very important in native language learning for a fetus. In a premature baby language learning is slow because of a delay in phoneme map development. Better the phoneme map in an infant’s brain better will be his vocabulary in the future.

It is easier for kids to learn/overlap phoneme maps for more languages than adults. So, kids can learn more languages easily than adults.

According to our brain, reading & writing are not natural processes. Written words are symbols of spoken words. So, while we are reading, our brain is decoding those symbols with meaning to understand. Our brain interprets reading in three steps. First is recognition of the visual representation of written words, then understanding of the meaning, and then conversion of those written words in a speech in the pronunciation & articulation part of the brain.

Now it is scientifically proven that whole-word reading is the wrong technique to teach reading. Always teach reading by splitting words into two or three parts. In Finland, all pre & primary-school reading is taught by splitting words (In the Finnish language “Tavut” is the word for splitting words). Overall, learning to read requires good general intelligence, good cognitive & attention control, interest in the topic, a well-functioning visual word-form area & precise auditory system.

Conclusion:

“Talk to your baby. Get used to speaking to your baby about everything that you are doing.”

‒ Rita Rosenback

From the 5th month of pregnancy till one year of your baby is very crucial for language learning. Talk as much as possible with your baby in your native language. This is the best time for language perception in your baby. Talk to your baby with word repetition & proper stress syllables can provide a great vocabulary for your baby in the future. The development of a proper phoneme map of the native language can be the best foundation for learning other languages in the future also. Read more and more easy books to your baby at her young age. Try to sing and let your baby listen to lullabies in your native language.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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