Lanuage Development in Infants

Thanks to Paul:

This article talks about how babies just over a year old are able to distinguish between language and non language sounds. Even though some can not speak yet, they can often interpret the meaning of the language being thrown at them. This may not seem that impressive seeing as babies learn to talk shortly after this period in their lives. However, the most exciting part of the study shows that these infants are using the same areas of the brain as a fully developed adult would. By the time a baby is first learning words, this area of the brain is already fully functional. This experiment was very similar to the one we looked at in class, where an MRI is used to look at which areas of the brain are associated with creativity. Scientists were able to use MRI's to determine that baby's use the same areas of the brain as adults to process language.