Babies don't learn to talk just from hearing sounds.
It happens during that magical stage when a baby's babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first "mama" or "dada." Florida scientists discovered that starting around age six months, babies begin shifting from the intent eye gaze of early infancy to studying mouths when people talk to them. "The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they're hearing," explains developmental psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led the study. "It's an incredibly complex process." Apparently it doesn't take them too long to absorb the movements that match basic sounds. They stick with lip-reading a bit longer. "It's a pretty intriguing finding," says University of Iowa psychology professor Bob McMurray, who also studies speech development. The babies "know what they need to know about, and they're able to deploy their attention to what's important at that point in development." It offers more evidence that quality face-time with your tot is very important for speech development - more than, say, turning on the latest baby DVD. It also begs the question of whether babies who turn out to have developmental disorders, including autism, learn to speak the same way, or if they show differences that just might provide an early warning sign. [1] It generally takes place during that extraordinary phase when the babbling of a baby gradually transforms from claptrap to syllables and sooner or later, the gibberish sound changes into that first syllables "mama" or "dada". The scientists from Florida have recently discovered that starting from an average age of 6 months; babies generally tend to start changing from the purposeful eye gaze they used to have during early infancy to understanding worlds by lip reading, also known as studying mouths, at the time they find someone talking to them. During the course of study, which was made available on Monday in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences", the experts said: "It's an incredibly complex process". "It's a pretty intriguing finding", claimed Professor Bob McMurray, of the University of Iowa's psychology department. Perhaps, it does not take them massive time for absorbing the lip movements that are identical to some fundamental sounds. By the time of their first birth anniversary, babies generally start reacting on hearing a familiar sound; they will react every time you call their name. At that point in time, they stick with lip reading a bit longer. [2]
It happens during that magical stage when a baby's babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first "mama" or "dada." Florida scientists discovered that starting around age 6 months, babies begin shifting from the intent eye gaze of early infancy to studying mouths when people talk to them. It appears in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[3]
Unraveling how babies learn to speak isn't merely a curiosity. Plus, it helps them understand how the brain wires itself early in life for learning all kinds of things. Those coos of early infancy start changing around age 6 months, growing into the syllables of the baby's native language until the first word emerges, usually just before age 1. That sing-song speech that parents intuitively use? Scientists know the pitch attracts babies' attention, and the rhythm exaggerates key sounds. Other studies have shown that babies who are best at distinguishing between vowel sounds like "ah" and "ee" shortly before their first birthday wind up with better vocabularies and prereading skills by kindergarten. Scientists have long known that babies also look to speakers' faces for important social cues about what they're hearing. Just like adults, they're drawn to the eyes, which convey important nonverbal messages like the emotion connected to words and where to direct attention. [4] Four-month-old infants, along with adults, spent more time looking at the speaker's eyes. Babies between 6 and 12 months shifted their attention between the speaker's mouth and eyes. It is unknown at what age the shift from mouth to eyes is totally complete, but the older infants tended to look at the speaker's eyes more than her mouth. "By this time at 12 months, babies are already producing their first words and have mastered the first sounds and structures of the language," said David Lewkowicz, an expert on infant perceptual development and lead author of the study. [5] Videos of a Spanish speaking woman were shown to English-learning babies between 4 and 12 months of age. "These babies were experts at English, and now when they heard Spanish, it was like 'Ok, this is weird, I better start looking at the mouth again, instead of the eyes, so I can figure out what's going on.'" The study data suggest that infants who continue to focus most of their attention on the mouth past 12 months of age, ". are probably not developing age-appropriate perceptual and cognitive skills and may be at risk for disorders like autism," Lewkowicz says. [6] "When these facts are combined with our findings, it is likely that, contrary to typically developing children, infants who are as yet undiagnosed but who are at risk for autism may continue to focus on the mouth of a native-language talker at 12 months of age and beyond," Lewkowicz said. "If so, this would provide the earliest behavioral confirmation of impending developmental disability and would give clinicians an early start on intervention procedures aimed at lessening or preventing the most devastating effects of autism and other communicative disorders," he suggested. The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has more about speech and language development. [7] Two-year-old children with autism attend more to speaker's mouths, according to past literature on the developmental disorder. This study shows that attention to the mouth is a normal developmental phase during the first year, and the comparision could aid in autism diagnosis at an earlier age. "If that is the case, this would be a huge step forward in the development of diagnostic tools for autism because it would be six months earlier than what we can do now. "Because the brain is so elastic and there is an enormous proliferation of neuro structure during infancy, if we could pick up these difficulties as early as 12 months, we could begin to intervene at an earlier time and get far better outcomes in children," he said. [5]
Autistic children at age two concentrate more on the lips of the speaker than the eyes. This determines that paying attention to the mouth is the normal pattern of development at the age of one. This comparision could assist in recognizing autism at an earlier age. [8]
Results showed that at four months of age, babies focused almost solely on the women's eyes. By six to eight months of age, when the infants entered the so-called "babbling" stage of language acquisition and reached a milestone of cognitive development in which they can direct their attention to things they find interesting, their focus shifted to the women's mouths. They continue to "lip read" until about 10 months of age, a point when they finally begin mastering the basic features of their native language. [6] No marriage. Babies as young as 6 months of age gain lip reading skills as they learn to develop language. In the first 4 months, babies will focus on the eyes of their mothers. As they begin to develop language, babies will shift their focus to the mouths of their mothers or other caregivers. This starts at around 6 months, and continues until approximately 10 months of age. At 10 months, many babies have presumably feel confident with the babbling and early language, and once again focus on the eyes of their mothers. [9] MONDAY, Jan. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Lip reading is one of the ways that infants learn to talk, a new study reports. They also said their discovery may suggest new ways to diagnose autism spectrum disorders. The findings are published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "In other words, infants become lip readers when they first begin producing their first speech-like sounds," he added. Once a typical infant starts to develop language skills, they shift their main focus to the speakers' eyes, demonstrating the need to gather socially relevant cues as they continue to gain more sophisticated communication abilities. [7] The study was later published in the National Academy of Sciences. Babies tend to have a deep sense of understanding and they try and adapt themselves to the ways of the world, as soon as they are born. They slowly tend to reciprocate what their parents speak and finally come up with their own first words. This new study could definitely be helpful in the better learning procedure for infants and toddlers. They can be made to learn new words, with the help of lip sync, which will help them understand and grasp better, what the person is trying to explain to them. [10]
Study: Babies lip-read when learning to talk Associated Press Babies don't learn to talk just from hearing sounds. It happens during the stage when a baby's babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into words. [11] This amazing new study unraveled yet another mystery of nature, and showed how even the youngest of persons tend to start the process of learning through words and lip movement. They tend to make sense out of the sound in sync with the lip movement, and then finally they come to the stage of being able to create the same sound on their own, when their vocals are developed enough. "It's a pretty intriguing finding," The babies "know what they need to know about, and they're able to deploy their attention to what's important at that point in development", said Professor Bob McMurray, from the University of Lowa. [10]
The 8- and 10-month-olds studied mostly the mouth. It makes sense that at 6 months, babies begin observing lip movement, Lewkowicz says, because that's about the time babies' brains gain the ability to control their attention rather than automatically look toward noise. What happened when these babies accustomed to English heard Spanish? The 12-month-olds studied the mouth longer, just like younger babies. They needed the extra information to decipher the unfamiliar sounds. That's one reason it's easier for babies to become bilingual than older children or adults. [4] Lewkowicz went a step further, wondering whether babies look to the lips for cues as well, sort of like how adults lip-read to decipher what someone's saying at a noisy party. He and doctoral student Amy Hansen-Tift tested nearly 180 babies, groups of them at ages four, six, eight, 10 and 12 months. How? They showed videos of a woman speaking in English or Spanish to babies of English speakers. A gadget mounted on a soft headband tracked where each baby was focusing his or her gaze and for how long. They found a dramatic shift in attention: When the speaker used English, the four-month-olds gazed mostly into her eyes. [1]
Lewkowicz believes that babies who continue to focus on lip reading and mouths past 12 months of age, may be at risk for developmental disorders. [9]
"The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound theyre hearing," the Huffington Post quoted developmental psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led the study being published Monday. "Its an incredibly complex process." This data could help in understanding autism in children as well. [8] This undated handout photo provided by Florida Atlantic University shows a baby looking at a monitor, wearing a band that helps determines head position which, in turn, enables an eye tracker to find the eye and the pupil. It happens during that magical stage when a baby's babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first "mama" or "dada.
From;https://newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_m3/babies-autism-eyes.html
