As adults we can easily distinguish when we hear words spoken in a different language, but could we tell the difference just by looking at the lips of the person speaking. Amazingly there are new studies that show babies as young as 3 months old can do just that. Babies were shown a silent video clip of an adult who is fluent in two languages repeating the same sentence in only one language. After the child’s reaction to the video was consistant, the baby was shown the same adult saying the same sentence but this time in another language, the baby’s reaction was one of curiosity and intensity. Child psychologists agree that the results of this testing proves that infants are born with an ability to indentify and relate to "visual speech". These test results also aid experts in understand the relationship between language & brain development.
Did you know …
Research has found that babies actually loose this "lip reading" ability by their eighth month. Studies have also shown that by eight months a baby’s ability to hear the tone differences in vowels & consonants of other languages also decreases. So by introducing your child to another language at a very early age, and being dilligent to speak in both lanuages, your baby will more easily retain it.
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Wow- very interesting!
ReplyDeletei agree sarah - we are astonishing beings aren't we!!!
ReplyDeleteSimply incredible! Again I learned something fascinating from you. I'm hopeless when it comes to learning a new language and I can't even do accents. I can understand some Spanish though but can't speak it for anything.
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