Language Development in Infants

From the beginning, the development of language is a dance between nature and nurture. Babies are built to tune in to their caregivers above all else. Caregivers can then provide loving conversations to tune into! Researchers have found that this interaction starts before babies are even born.

Infants are able to respond to sound 10 weeks before birth. So the process of learning their mother's voice and the sound pattern of the language she speaks begins prenatally. Babies are ready for and active in this process of learning language. They come equipped to get the most out of the nurturance their parents give them.

Babies are interested in speech from the very beginning and will turn to speech sounds before any other auditory signal (Vouloumanos, Hauser, Werker, & Martin, 2010). In addition, they prefer their mother's voice to any other. They have been hearing it prenatally and take comfort in hearing it after birth. A mother's lullaby can be very calming.

Within a few days of birth, after hearing their father's voice more clearly and regularly, they also come to know his voice and find it comforting.

Parents need to understand that they have a profound impact on their baby's language development. Their baby is so

very interested in tem, in their voices, and in their faces. This sets the stage for the baby to pay attention to them and learn from them. What parents teach in the early years is critically important.

Ready to listen and learn

A baby is also born able to perceive language. Infants are able to perceive sounds in all languages - they are truly

"citizens of the world." They can hear

ine smallest aistnctions or sounas even though there are only minor frequency changes. As they are exposed to the language spoken around them, they

develop perceptual maps in their brains. which help them focus only on the language (or languages) they hear and experience If a sound doesn't occur in the baby's language, his ability to discern it will

decline. For examole. a babv who listens to Swedish will hear its 16 vowel sounds.

But a babv who hears Fnalish will lose the ability to distinguish among the extra vowel sounds. He will eventually respond to only the eight or nine vowel sounds he needs for English.

By the age of 12 months, a baby's

anquade mappind in the brain is welll under way. His experience has had a dramatic effect on his perceptual system.

Babies can also benefit from hearing

more than one anduade earlv on. We have known for a while that newborns ream to preter ine language neir mother spoke durina preanancv. But new research shows it works for two anauades at once. Newborns who heard two lanquages recularv in utero are born preferring both those languages over others and seem to be able to telll them apart from each other (Byers-Heinlein, Burns, & Werker, 2010). These findings add to the growing evidence that bilingualism is good for children. Over the course of the first year, the baby will become more of a native listener, focusing in on the language(s) he is surrounded with.

Babies watch speech as well as listen to it. Babies love faces and learn language while they look. They watch the speaker's lips. By 18 weeks, they

are learning which mouth movements go with the sounds they hear.

Producing sounds

At about 3 months of age, babies' first

anduade-like sounds tvoicallv appear.

These sounds, called cooing, include

a couple or deep inrody sounds such as "ku" and "gu") as well as many vowel sounds (such as "o-o-o-u-u-u"). Most often. cooina occurs when the infant is comfortable and settled. It is the result of parent-intant social Interaction. babies also coo to initiate interaction with their parents and caregivers.

Babies love to mimic what they hear.

This begins at 12 weeks; babies are good at mimicking by 20 weeks. During the entire time, infants and caregivers are communicating and en oying eacn oter.

communication skill of turn-taking.

The power of nurture

Language development is influenced

with babies.

Connections in the brain are beina formed and strengthened. The more a caregiver talks to the infant face-to-face, the greater the opportunity the infant has to learn language. At this stage of babies' development, caregivers should respond

to infants' sounds and gestures as if they were intentional acts of communication by the infant.

There are two important ways caregivers can respond. They should imitate and they should talk. When an infant gurgles, for example, the caregiver

can respond with her own gurgling imitation and then add something like,

"Well, tell me more about it!" When the baby begins to coo or gurgle in response to this interaction, the caregiver can extend the conversation, changing the verbal response she adds. This imitation

can conunue for live minutes or longer.

Infants and young children respond to some types of speech better than others.

Parentese, also known as infant-directed speech, is a type of speech

that is used naturallv ov most parents in almost all cultures (U.S. mothers seem to use it most intensely). Even children use this specia wav of talkind to babies Babies really appreciate, pay attention to, and learn trom this type or talking (Thiessen, Hill, & Saffran, 2005).

Typically, parentese consists of

verv short and simple sentences. The speaker's tone of voice, or pitch, is much

acher man when socakinto acUTS.

Parents have a tendency to pause more often when speaking parentese to their children. Vocabulary is limited; talk centers around what is happening at the present time. Parents are often more animated and affectionate when speaking

parentese and generally use many more

facial expressions and gestures.

The use of parentese greatly enhances an infant's language development and should be encouraged as a means

for parents to communicate with their infants. It is easier for the baby to hear and learn from and seems to tell babies,

"Hey, this conversation is for you!"

what are 5 key points about language development in infants ?