The great challenge
The recent experiments done by Psychologist Whitney Weikum and researchers from the university of British Columbia and Katherine Kinzler and her colleges from Harvard University, have shown that between four to six month, babies have the ability to distinguished among the sounds of unfamiliar languages. Having also found that they start loosing this ability after their first year. The researchs showed that young infants can tell the difference between the sound of different languages through some experiments.
In the case of Weikum´s experiment, babies were exposed to different silent video clips in which French-English speakers read out the same sentence in one of the two languages. once the babies become accustomed, Weikum showed them different clips of the same speakers reading out new sentences. Due to this, babies spend more time looking at the speaker on their screen, which showed that they had noticed the language changed, based only on lip movement.
On the case of Kinzler´s experiment, infants from english speaking homes were tested. Each baby watched videos of two bilingual women, one speaking English and the other spanish. Then the babies watched the women on two screens at the same time, but no longer speaking. Babies expressed their preference for the woman who had spoken English by looking at the screen for a longer time.
In the case of Weikum´s experiment, babies were exposed to different silent video clips in which French-English speakers read out the same sentence in one of the two languages. once the babies become accustomed, Weikum showed them different clips of the same speakers reading out new sentences. Due to this, babies spend more time looking at the speaker on their screen, which showed that they had noticed the language changed, based only on lip movement.
On the case of Kinzler´s experiment, infants from english speaking homes were tested. Each baby watched videos of two bilingual women, one speaking English and the other spanish. Then the babies watched the women on two screens at the same time, but no longer speaking. Babies expressed their preference for the woman who had spoken English by looking at the screen for a longer time.
Apart from these experiments, it is also important to highlight the studies made by Patricia Kuhl´s lab, in which researchers study brain activity in babies less than a year old through a device that measures the magnetic field around baby´s scalp´, to reveal the pattern of neurons firing in the brain. Even though, the period of study (four to six month of age) is just a small window to the complex world of human language, before speech language development begings. It gives us new tools to understand the functioning of the human brain, so this can be the beginning of new researchs to find the cure for language dissabilities, or to get to know each part of the human brain in deep. This new knowledge can open the door to understand several processes, the way in which we use our brain, and it can also increase the percentage of the brain that humans use.
How does a baby's brain grow and develop?
How does a baby`s brain learn to communicate?
How does a baby`s brain learn by imitation?
Up to here, we have been discussing the importance of this discoveries as regards babies´brains, what has showed us that in certain aspects we start discrimating , having preferences or prejudice since we are very little; and that the way in which we use our language can drive us apart and act as massive barriers between different social groups.
Banning the use of a language has a long history, full of sad stories in which many children were forced to forget where they came from, or having to be ashamed of their own culture. Banned languages is not a past issue, although there has been some changes in the way we behave at schools as regards different cultures. In some cases, banned languages eventually dissapeared but this is not the general rule.
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