Alan Mohamad - October 25, 2018
As I was scrolling through Science Daily’s psychology section looking for an
interesting article to read, one article caught my eye: Language Development Starts in
the Womb. The first thing that popped into my mind when I first spotted this article is the
image of an unborn fetus in its mother’s womb learning its ABCs for the first time. The
article starts by stating that “A month before they are born, fetuses carried by American
mothers-to-be can distinguish between someone speaking to them in English and
Japanese”. Using such opening, it is implied that fetus can tell the difference between
“good morning” and “Ohayou”. The article went on to describe an experiment conducted
in University of Kentucky that supports this claim. A device is fitted over the maternal
abdomen that can detect and monitor a fetus’ heartbeat. Following that a recording of a
speaker reading a passage in both English and Japanese is played next to the mother’s
abdomen. The researchers found that the heart rates of the fetuses changed after they
hearing the Japanese recording. We already know that fetuses can hear noises inside
the womb such as the mother’s heartbeat, gut sounds, and muffled external noises but
being able to differentiate between two rhythmically distinct languages sounded too
good to be true.
I did some searching and found the study that this article is referencing and
proceeded to read it in order to clear my doubts on whether or not language
development starts in the womb. Nowhere in the study report did it state that it has been
proven that babies begin language development before they are born. The report does
state that “These findings provide the first evidence for fetal language discrimination” but
gives no mention to language development and learning. Just because a fetus can tell
the difference in rhythm between sounds does not prove that a fetus is taking its first
steps in speaking.
Since this study is indeed the “first evidence for fetal language discrimination”,
more research is needed to be able to prove that language development begins in the
womb. The article does a great job describing the University of Kentucky study and
procedure into fetal language discrimination but does not mention that evidence is very
new and limited and that more studies must be conducted in order to support this early
language development hypothesis.
Lead Image: Pexels
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