Babies Born Three-Months Early Can Recognise Human Speech - Study
The research gives a new insight into the way mothers communicate with their babies - and how language skills develop
Brain scans reveal babies born THREE MONTHS early can recognise human speech - and even distinguish between male and female voices.
Babies born up to three months premature can recognise different syllables in human speech, say scientists.
A study showed similarities in the way the brain processes language in the new-borns and adults - including specific neurological reactions to changes from the 'ba' to 'ga' sound and to a male to female voices.
Professor Fabrice Wallois, of Picardie University in Amiens, France, said the findings suggest that early in the development of the brain it begins to decipher distinct sounds or 'phonemes'.
He said as early as three months before birth a baby's brain establishes neural functions that help decipher human speech.
At birth children can discriminate some syllables and recognise human speech but how these immature brain cells process it remains unclear.
Using powerful non-invasive scanners Prof Wallois and colleagues analysed 12 sleeping premature infants
born after 28 to 32 weeks while playing voice recordings.
This is the earliest age for neuronal responses to external stimuli and Prof Wallois found the premature brain can perceive differences in syllables.
In addition although the tests produced responses in the right frontal region of the brain - the first part of the brain to form - syllabic changes also sparked responses in the left hemisphere.
This suggests certain linguistic brain areas exhibit a sophisticated degree of organisation as early as three months prior to full term.
Prof Wallois said: 'We observed several points of similarity with the adult linguistic network.
'First, whereas syllables elicited larger right than left responses, the posterior temporal region escaped this general pattern, showing faster and more sustained responses over the left than over the right hemisphere.
'Second, discrimination responses to a change of phoneme (ba vs. ga) and a change of human voice (male vs. female) were already present and involved inferior frontal areas, even in the youngest infants.
'Third, whereas both types of changes elicited responses in the right frontal region, the left frontal region only reacted to a change of phoneme.
'These results demonstrate a sophisticated organisation of areas at the very onset of cortical circuitry - three months before term.
'They emphasise the influence of innate factors on regions involved in linguistic processing and social communication in humans.'
The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
