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When babies get "habituated"
Like the rest of us, babies get bored when they hear things over and over. The pervasive feeling that overwhelmes them when they are repeatedly exposed to the same stimulus is technically called habituation. But if, after a series of old sounds, they hear a new one, babies perk up, just like us. In such experiments, researchers have learned that babies have remarkable language skills long before anyone is taking them seriously. First, they can distinguish a language sound from any other random noise, thereby demonstrating an inborn readiness to become language users. Also, babies don't show favoritism toward particular language sounds; they react as eagerly to the sounds of the languages spoken around them as those that are not. So, an English-learning baby will discriminate among the different Hindi t and d sounds, for example, just as well as a Hindi-learning baby. But then, starting from the age of six months, babies start tuning in to the sounds of the languages they are actually learning, and like sieves, their brains stop letting other sounds get through and register. The "strange" sounds of foreign languages are now ignored in an effort to become focused and efficient users of the languages in their environment. But the brain "sieve" remains very pliable at least until school-age, ready to open new holes to let the sounds and words of new languages in, without so much as an accent.
Tags: bilingual, Hindi, newsletter
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