http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=babies-babbles-linked-to
My 11 month old niece Ava recently got a little Karaokemachine with a plastic microphone. Ava has enjoyed singing – well sort ofsinging – well let’s say she enjoys putting the entire microphone into hermouth and babbling. This new research study shows a relationship between whichside of a baby’s mouth moves first when babbling (the right) and the link tothe language centers of the left hemisphere.
BySarah Graham
Just a few minutes arounda newborn is enough to get anyone babbling like, well, a baby. But just whatdrives an infant's babbles remains a matter of much debate. Some scientistsposit 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 secondhypothesis holds that babbling instead represents a key step on the way tospeaking real words. New research published today in the journal Sciencefurther supports the latter theory--scientists say they have linked babybabbling to the brain's language-center.
By studying videotapes of 10 babies betweenthe ages of five and 12 months, Laura Ann Petitto of Dartmouth College andSiobhan Holowka of McGill University examined the degree of symmetry betweenthe right and left sides of each baby's mouth. The brain's language center islocated in the left side of the brain, which controls the right side of thebody. As a result, in adults, the right side of a speaker's mouth tends to openslightly wider than the left (although the difference is imperceptible ineveryday conversation). The scientists found that when babies babbled, theirmouths 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 theleft-hand side to open wider. "This discovery is the first to demonstrateleft hemisphere cerebral specialization for babies' production of language,just like we see in adults," Petitto says. "This suggests that languagefunctions specialize in the brain at a very early age." She is currentlyinvestigating whether the findings could help develop diagnostic tools todetermine--even before a baby has uttered his first 'real' word--if he mayencounter linguistic problems in the future. "The sooner parents andpediatricians recognize these problems," she says, "the sooner theycan 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.
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