Does monolingual have a prefix3/27/2023 ![]() ![]() By 11 months of age, the activity in the baby brain reflects the language or languages that they have been exposed to. ![]() A monolingual brain becomes tuned to the sounds of one language, and a bilingual brain becomes tuned to the sounds of two languages. Our findings show that babies’ brains become tuned to whatever language or languages they hear from their caregivers. We found some key differences between infants raised in monolingual versus bilingual homes.Īt 11 months of age, just before most babies begin to say their first words, the brain recordings revealed that:īabies from monolingual English households are specialized to process the sounds of English, and not the sounds of Spanish, an unfamiliar languageīabies from bilingual Spanish-English households are specialized to process the sounds of both languages, Spanish and English. We used a completely noninvasive technology called magnetoencephalography (MEG), which precisely pinpointed the timing and the location of activity in the brain as the babies listened to Spanish and English syllables. My collaborators and I recently studied the brain processing of language sounds in 11-month-old babies from monolingual (English only) and bilingual (Spanish-English) homes. For example, parents of bilingual children often wonder what is and isn’t typical or expected, or how their child will differ from those children who are learning a single language. Knowing how the baby brain learns one versus two languages is important for understanding the developmental milestones in learning to speak. What about those babies who hear two languages from birth? Can a baby brain specialize in two languages? If so, how is this process different then specializing in a single language? In other words, they become “native language specialists.” And, by their first birthdays, monolingual infants begin to lose their ability to hear the differences between foreign language sounds. John Mayer, CC BYīetween six and 12 months, infants who grow up in monolingual households become more specialized in the subset of sounds in their native language. ![]() Babies learn to recognize their mother’s voice even before they are born. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |