Language learning starts in the womb!

I found this on examiner.com  and I thought it was worth sharing: Find them on Facebook!

A new study published on the November 5th online edition ofCurrent Biology reveals that newborns' cries already carry the mark of their parents language. The study has found that babies start to develop language elements in the womb, long before they first start to coo and babble.

The findings not only disclose that newborn human babies can produce different sounding cry sounds. They also reveal that neonates prefer to make the sound patterns that were typical to them when in the womb during their third trimester of gestation, explained Kathleen Wermke of the University of Würzburg in Germany. Unlike previously believed, the data in this study supports how important a baby'a crying is for seeding the development of language, added Wermke.

In the last trimester of pregnancy human fetuses can memorize external sounds, particularlymelody contours in music and language. Newborns prefer their mother's voice above other voices and can perceive emotion through intonation contours in maternal speech, also known as 'motherese' or baby talk. Babies' ability to differentiate between languages and changes in pitch is based on melody patterns.

The study's research team, led by Wermke, recorded and analyzed 60 healthy three to five day old newborn's cries, half of which were born to French-speaking families and the other half to German-speaking families. Clear differences were noted in the tone of the babies' cries, based on their maternal tongue.

French newborns had a cry with a rising melody contour, while the German babies had a falling melody contour cry. These melody patterns are consistent with the two languages, stated Wermke.

The data from this study show a very early native language impact, said the researchers. Infants can't match vowel sounds made to them by adult speakers until 12 weeks after being born, that skill depends on vocal control. However, they can imitate the tone of their mother's spoken language.

The fact that they can imitate melody contour, is probably due to their motivation to mimic their mother's voice to establish a bond. Since melody contour is probably the only characteristic of their mother's speech they can imitate, it could explain why it is found so early in a newborn's life.

Related articles

• Newborns need their mother's voice to really fire their brains up [Mad Science] (io9.com)
• Infants give mother tongue new meaning (theglobeandmail.com)
• Mum's the word: Montreal team finds newborns respond uniquely to mother's voice (canada.com)

A limited offer for Facebook friends, Twitter followers or Blog Contacts

Do you have questions about communication?  Do you have a small group of people who might like the opportunity to ask questions about speech, language and learning?  Perhaps family members, colleagues or neighbours, individuals from a play-group, discussion or hobby group, sports team, parents or teachers from your school, or even co-workers? 

Small Talk Speech and Language Therapy are offering a limited number of one-hour long, no-obligation, FREE question and answer forums. We are happy to extend this offer to any of your Face Book contacts (please forward) and will travel within a 20 mile radius of Hednesford or we can welcome your group to come to our Head Office at Centrix House. 

To take advantage of this limited offer 

please ring 0844 704 5888 or e-mail info@smalltalk-ltd.co.uk
www.smarttalkers.org.uk
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Auditory Memory

There are several different types of memory including long term and short term. Children may have a good long term memory but have difficulties with their auditory memory.

Auditory memory is the ability to process information presented orally, analyse it mentally and store it to be recalled later.  

Auditory memory is one of the most important learning skills. Children with weak auditory skills often have difficulty understanding what words mean, and can show a delayed grasp of language. This is because children need to  remember word sounds and piece them together to form words. Furthermore, since many children learn to read by being read to, those with problems with auditory learning will likely take longer to learn to read, and these delays may be reflected later in life with poor reading and writing skills.

We work on strategies to help auditory memory skills in small Talkers and Teeny Talkers from Smart Talkers Pre-School Communication Groups

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Sad but true!

I cant help but feel sad that the level of apathy in some sections of society is so bad that its debilitating. The Sure Start children's centres aim to provide quality pre-school activities to both entertain and support parents and children. They do prioritise families with needs such as sole parents, children with disabilities, travelling families, fathers or those known to social services  but everyone is welcomed.


The sessions they provide are mostly free in Staffordshire. They are sourced from the leading pre-school activity providers in the area and strive for excellent service. There's choices of messy play, yoga, Debutots drama, music with mummy, cookery club and of course our own Smart Talkers Pre-School Communication groups to name but a few. It sounds great doesn't it and in most of the centres it works really well. However, because of the level of apathy in some of the areas or in the sections of society they most want to attract, the numbers attending are limited. In one Centre I couldn't get anyone at all and after 3 weeks of twiddling my thumbs, we had to give up. I'd tried everything possible including posters in local shops and  newsagents, a newspaper article, adverts, netmums etc and contacted all the health professionals, local nurseries, pre-schools and other groups.


At these centres, I see mothers with pyjamas under their coats dropping youngsters off at the adjacent school claiming they're going back to bed, others chatting aimlessly smoking with their mates at the school gate. They usually have a pre-schooler or two in tow (complete with the essential badge..... sorry dummy). They would be welcome at the groups but they'd prefer to do nothing except press the button on the remote control for little Keesha or KayD.

Unfortunately, many of these little ones suffer from a lack of appropriate stimulation and as a result are likely to have an increased risk of delayed speech, language and communication. This will then mean that they will have problems with written language as spoken language skills are the building blocks for written language.    


Unfortunately, research shows that the gap at aged 7 years is likely to persist into adulthood. This has in turn been linked to lower expected socio-economic status in later adult by such eminent scholars as Professor James Law from City University. Another US study showed that language deprivation and teen pregnancy can be linked.It is estimated here in the UK that 75% of young offenders have speech, language and communication difficulties of some type or other.


These problems could be transient difficulties i.e. they'd develop appropriate skills with stimulation or intervention, but will be real and intrusive.  These cases are not to be confused with speech, language and communication disorders which are unavoidable and will need speech and language therapy input, these are children who are language deprived.


We're not entirely sure what is happening to the children's centres after April 1st 2011 but one thing is for certain.... we cant stop trying to engage with these families by breaking through the apathy. There's too much at stake to stop!

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Related articles

• Language intervention provides educational benefits for preschool children (scienceblog.com)
• Language intervention provides educational benefits for preschool children (eurekalert.org)

Giving Voice

Part 2 of the video viral. Please share

Language link to 'bubble blowing'

I was looking at some old archive news on language acquisition and I thought 

this was worth sharing from 2006. It's from the BBC news website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5106294.stm

Infants who can blow bubbles and lick their lips are more likely to pick
 up language quickly, research suggests.

A Lancaster University study of 120 toddlers found the ability to perform 

complex mouth movements was strongly linked with language development. 

They also found children who were good at 'pretending' an object was 

something else had better language skills.

The findings could help experts identify children who may struggle with language skills at an early stage. At 21 months - the age of the toddlers in the study  - children are learning new words at a faster rate than any other time 

in their lives.

Children pick up language skills at different speeds - some children will be late 

to start talking - but this doesn't mean they will always have poorer language 

skills than other children.

In a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Dr Katie Alcock, lecturer in psychology at Lancaster University, carried out a series of tests to identify skills that might predict a child's ability to develop language. She looked at the infants' ability to perform hand gestures and mouth movements and to carry out tasks involving puzzles and pretend play.

The children's language ability was also assessed through a parental 

questionnaire, word games with simple images, and monitoring during normal play. 

As well as oral motor skills, she found that hand gestures such as waving 

or making shapes were associated with better language development but 

other movements such as walking and running were not.

Pretending

The researchers said they expected to find that children who had better cognitive development, such as being able to do a puzzle or match pictures and colours, would have better language skills. But in fact, only the ability to pretend that one object was another object - such as pretending a wooden block is a car or hairbrush - was associated with better language skills. Dr Alcock said: "Until children are about two they are very poor at licking things off their lips or giving someone a proper kiss. "If they don't have those skills it's going to be a big stumbling block in learning to form sounds. "Children who have speech and language problems before they go to school do tend to have problems with learning to read and write. "It's important we give children who need it extra help as early as we can."

Dr Alcock added that children learn to speak at different times and most children who start late will catch up. "The best thing parents can do to help is talk to their kids," she added.

The team are planning to follow the children at three, four and five years to see how the skills that were found to be linked to language impact on later development.

Giving Voice Campaign

Speech and language therapists have  quietly gone about their business of helping clients with all sorts of speech, language and communication difficulty for many, many years. It's time now to celebrate this. The RCSLT giving Voice Campaign is launched!!