My 11 month old niece Ava recently got a little Karaoke
machine with a plastic microphone. Ava has enjoyed singing – well sort of
singing – well let’s say she enjoys putting the entire microphone into her
mouth and babbling. This new research study shows a relationship between which
side of a baby’s mouth moves first when babbling (the right) and the link to
the language centers of the left hemisphere.
Just a few minutes around
a newborn is enough to get anyone babbling like, well, a baby. But just what
drives an infant's babbles remains a matter of much debate. Some scientists
posit that the sounds result from a baby's attempts to gain control over his mouth,
tongue and lips and, therefore, are not related to language. A second
hypothesis holds that babbling instead represents a key step on the way to
speaking real words. New research published today in the journal Science
further supports the latter theory--scientists say they have linked baby
babbling to the brain's language-center.
By studying videotapes of 10 babies between
the ages of five and 12 months, Laura Ann Petitto of Dartmouth College and
Siobhan Holowka of McGill University examined the degree of symmetry between
the right and left sides of each baby's mouth. The brain's language center is
located in the left side of the brain, which controls the right side of the
body. As a result, in adults, the right side of a speaker's mouth tends to open
slightly wider than the left (although the difference is imperceptible in
everyday conversation). The scientists found that when babies babbled, their
mouths opened more on the right-hand side. A nonbabble noise (such as the sound
"ahh") resulted in a symmetrical open mouth and a smile caused the
left-hand side to open wider. "This discovery is the first to demonstrate
left hemisphere cerebral specialization for babies' production of language,
just like we see in adults," Petitto says. "This suggests that language
functions specialize in the brain at a very early age." She is currently
investigating whether the findings could help develop diagnostic tools to
determine--even before a baby has uttered his first 'real' word--if he may
encounter linguistic problems in the future. "The sooner parents and
pediatricians recognize these problems," she says, "the sooner they
can begin to treat them."
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.
