2023-11-24 07:00:00
From 7 months, the baby is able to hear sounds in his mother’s womb. kintarapong / stock.adobe.com
Well before his first chirps, the newborn already has specific skills for learning his mother tongue. When and how do they acquire them? A team of researchers, including French, provide some answers.
Learning a foreign language is not easy. However, when it comes to one’s mother tongue, acquisition occurs very quickly and effortlessly from the first months of life. This learning is all the easier when the child has a natural preference for his mother’s voice. However, as several studies have suggested, the infant’s linguistic imprinting does not take root at birth. It would actually start well before that.
It has long been known that babies hear their first sounds in their mother’s womb. Lulled by these sound signals, they would already be able to recognize the sounds and subtle rhythms of their mother tongue. But how does this prenatal experience set the stage for learning? What influence does it have on the developing brain? Little is known about this. By studying the neuronal activity of newborns, a team led by…
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