Gaby
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have revealed why the songs of mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers are so significant for infants. It turns out that babies learn words through rhythm and tone rather than just sounds, as previously believed by researchers. Now, scientists assert that speaking to infants should be melodic, or even better, simply singing to them.
The researchers stated that they have debunked the common notion that phonetic information in the form of the alphabet is the key to language learning.
What the Scientists Discovered
The Cambridge team found that infants learn language based on rhythmic information, including rises and falls in tone. They determined that babies do not process phonetic information—the smallest sounds of language—until they are about seven months old.
The researchers also noted that dyslexia and speech development disorders may be linked to rhythm perception rather than difficulties in processing phonetic information.
It was previously thought that infants memorize small sound elements and piece them together to form words.
To test this assumption, the team recorded the brain activity of 50 infants aged 4, 7, and 11 months while they watched a video of a preschool teacher singing 18 children’s songs. The researchers used specialized algorithms to interpret how infants encode this information in their brains. Ultimately, it was found that phonetic coding in children develops gradually over the first year of life. According to the study’s lead researcher, Usha Goswami, a professor of neurobiology at Cambridge, infants use rhythmic information as a framework or skeleton to which they add phonetic information.
Key Takeaways
“Our research showed that individual sounds of language are not reliably processed until about seven months, although most infants can recognize familiar words by that time,” noted Professor Goswami.
After seven months, according to the researcher, language sounds begin to accumulate, but this happens too slowly to form the foundation of language. Information about language rhythm acts as a “hidden glue” that underpins the development of a well-functioning language system.
Therefore, parents should sing to their babies as often as possible and read them nursery rhymes, believes Ms. Goswami.
This study is part of a project examining the connection between speech and dyslexia as well as speech development disorders, the Independent reported. As Usha Goswami pointed out, science has long tried to explain these disorders through the presence of phonetic problems. However, the evidence for this hypothesis has not been convincing. Now, it can be said that individual differences in children’s language learning skills may be related to rhythm.
The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Communications.
