Babies Want to Speak AsEarly As 7 Months

Babies usually start speaking by their first birthday. But new research suggests talking to your baby stimulates his brain well before she utters those first words.

For the study， published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences， the authors compared how 7- and 11-month-old babies from English-speaking families processed sounds from English and Spanish.

Researchers at the University of Washington looked at 57 babies who were 7， 11 and 12 months old. The babies sat in an egg-shaped， noninvasive brain scanner that measures brain activation and listened to speech sounds played over a loudspeaker.

The researchers examined patterns of brain activation in areas of the brain that analyze sound， as well as areas that plan the motor movements required to produce speech.

At 7 months， infants responded equally to sounds from both English and Spanish.

“Babies are citizens of the world，” Dr. Patricia Kuhl， the lead researcher on the study， said. “They’re not committed to any language or any languages. They’re just open.”

At 11 months， however， the infants saw greater activation of the motor areas in the brain for English sounds. Kuhl said this suggests that as infants’ brains develop further， they focus in on sounds familiar to them.

“What we believe is happening is that the babies are dying to talk back，” Kuhl said. “It means that babies even at an early age are practicing and rehearsing and activating brains in a social way so that when we serve something to them， they’re attempting to volley back.”

These findings reinforce the importance of talking to your baby， instead of just plopping him or her in front of the television.

“When [babies] look at the TV set， they seem interested but their brains don’t learn，” Kuhl said. “Babies recognize and can distinguish the sounds only if they heard live speakers present to them – only if they were interacting socially.”

Dr. Gordon Ramsay， director of the spoken communication laboratory at the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta， said multiple elements are at play when infants learn how to speak.

“The message for parents is that speech acquisition in infancy is built upon a scaffold of sensory experience， motor activity and social interaction，” Ramsay said. “All these components need to come together in the natural resonant coupling between child， caregiver and environment if every child is to progress along the path to spoken language.”

However， Ramsay says the study should have followed the same babies through the course of their development， rather than examining different 7-month-olds and 11- and 12-month-olds.

“Because developmental timing is so important， and there is so much variability and delay within children， it’s really important to do longitudinal studies，” Ramsay said.

《美國國家科學院院刊》公布的一項新研究顯示，在嬰兒發出最初幾個單詞前，與他們對話能促進他們大腦的發育。華盛頓大學的研究人員對57個7、11、12個月的嬰兒研究后發現，7個月的嬰兒就能對英語和西班牙語做出回應，他們雖然不能說某種語言，但他們的嘴在動，11個月的嬰兒的大腦運動區會對英語發音有較大活動。開展這項研究的庫爾博士說，嬰兒在很小的時候就試著以社會性的方式激活大腦，對我們提供的事情努力做出回應。這一發現也佐證了與嬰兒對話，而不是把他們放在電視前的重要性。只有社交性互動，如與他們說話，他們才能辨別出發聲。亞特蘭大州馬庫斯孤獨癥中心口頭交流實驗室的戈登.拉姆齊博士稱，嬰兒學說話與幾個因素有關，如，嬰兒的話語習得要基于感覺經驗、運動活動和社會互動，但需要對同一批受試者進行縱向研究，因為嬰兒在發育時間上存在差異。

[http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/15/babies-want-to-speak-as-early-as-7-months/]