Helloooooo Baby!

baby1Did you know fetuses start developing language skills in the last 10 weeks of pregnancy? Imagine what would happen if they had cell phones in the womb! Researchers in the United States and Sweden have discovered the tiny humans can actually learn by listening to their mother’s communicate.

Have I blown your mind?

The research is partly based on their auditory system already fully working during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy. Infants are able to listen and decipher sounds as well as remember and learn them. Once born, babies at just 30 hours old (I’m still younger) were exposed to Swedish or English vowel sounds. Infants responded by strength of suction on their pacifier that was connected to a computer!

Don’t believe it? Check out this video of a newborn being tested

Whenever the baby sucked on it’s pacifier, the computer delivered generated sounds of vowels through headphones. Results indicated that babies can distinguish different languages when born, and are curious to further explore languages that are unfamiliar. Babies with bilingual mothers can equally adopt two or more languages through natural exposure. Based on this research, every child should start life with the knowledge to converse in different languages. Why not give your bundle of joy a head start by learning a new language yourself? Perhaps you can start by taking some Spanish classes!