A new study has revealed that babies' brains rehearse speech mechanics months before they utter their first words.
According to the study, infants can tell the difference between sounds of all languages until about 8 months of age when their brains start to focus only on the sounds they hear around them.
The study by University of Washington show that in 7- and 11-month-old infants speech sounds stimulate areas of the brain that coordinate and plan motor movements for speech.
It was found that baby brains start laying down the groundwork of how to form words long before they actually begin to speak and this may affect the developmental transition.
Lead author Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the UW's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences said that most babies babble by 7 months, but don't utter their first words until after their first birthdays and finding activation in motor areas of the brain when infants are simply listening is significant, because it means the baby brain is engaged in trying to talk back right from the start and suggests that 7-month-olds' brains are already trying to figure out how to make the right movements that will produce words.
The results emphasize the importance of talking to kids during social interactions even if they aren't talking back yet.
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
