Babytalk Strengthen Your Child's Ability to Listen, Understand, and Communicate

Birth to Three Months The newborn baby arrives totally helpless and dependent, but nonetheless amazingly well equipped in a number of ways to interact with the adults around him. He shows an emotional inclination toward people from the very start of life and soon engages them in the communication process. He recognizes his mother's and father's voices on his very first day,1 from how they sounded while he was in the womb. He also will respond to a television or radio show that has been frequently played in his vicinity!2 (He has in fact been hearing for the past two months, as the auditory system is functional from the seventh month of pregnancy.) The newborn's hearing is not yet as sensitive as that of adults;3 he shows a reflex turning toward low quiet sounds, which will later be lost. Within days, he can distinguish recordings of his own cries from those of other babies and can discriminate between the sound of a real baby crying and a computer simulation, crying harder in response to the former. At this stage too, he shows a preference for speech that is high-pitched and very tuneful, with lots of rises and falls.4, 5 By the age of one month, he is showing interest in listening to a wide range of sounds and will "fixate" on one sound for some time. An extraordinary feature at this stage is that by the age of four weeks, he can distinguish between phonemes, which are the smallest units in the language to signal meaning. This means, for example, that he knows there are two different sounds when he hears the words "pat" and "bat" spoken, although the difference is only a tiny one.6 By two months, babies can even discriminate male from female voices. It is tempting to conclude that the infant arrives closely attuned to speech, but it is also possible that speech is suited to the innate characteristics of the human condition. At the same time he is exploring sound, the new baby shows a parallel interest in people. Faces engage his attention, having many of the qualities that he finds most attractivemovement, three dimensions rather than two, contrast between dark and light, and curved lines.7, 8, 9 By the age of only thirty-six hours, he already shows a preference for watching a video of his mother's face over one of a stranger, demonstrating amazingly rapid learning.10 He also prefers to watch the movements made by people rather than those made by animals or inanimate objects.11 The newborn baby has an extraordinary abilitylost a few weeks laterof imitating tongue protrusion and mouth opening.12 He can also imitate facial expressions of sadness, happiness, and surprise.13, 14, 15 Nobody quite knows why these abilities exist at this time, or why they disappear. In the early weeks, the baby cries and produces other vocalizations like hiccups and burps, all related to his bodily functions. Although these sounds are not used to communicate intentionally at this stage, the adults around him respond to his noises, paving the way for true interaction a little later. The baby learns that different behaviors receive different responses. For example, he cries and fusses, and his mother says, "Oh, you want your diaper changed," or he looks toward a toy and she says, "You want to see teddy," as she brings it toward him. The magical first smile is seen at about six weeks. It is an extremely powerful stimulus to the adults around him, who are prepared to do almost anything up to and including standing on their heads to evoke one! At this stage, the amount he vocalizes and the frequency with which his facial expressions change does not differ according to whether or not he is looking at an adult. He will smile to a range of stimuli, and not only at people.16 He may now start an interaction sequence with an adult by catching his eyWard, Sally is the author of 'Babytalk Strengthen Your Child's Ability to Listen, Understand, and Communicate', published 2001 under ISBN 9780345437075 and ISBN 0345437071.