New Study Shows That Babies Start Picking Up Language in Utero So Quit Fucking Swearing Already
LatestIf you thought you only had to start watching what you say in front of your kids once they’re around 1 or 2-years-old, think again. A new study shows that babies begin picking up language while they are still in the womb, maybe even as early 30 weeks’ gestation, which is generally around the time that the fetus develops hearing.
Scientists conducted research on 80 infants — 40 from the United States and 40 from Sweden — to determine how well the babies could recognize their native languages. To determine their comprehension, the babies were all given pacifiers and played a mix of English and Swedish vowel sounds. Researchers then monitored the way they sucked while the various sounds were playing and discovered that American babies were not as fixated on their pacifiers when English vowel sounds were playing as they were when the swedish vowel sounds were playing, while with Swedish babies, the situation was reversed. Their level of focus depending on the language suggests that the babies stopped to listen to the sounds that they were more familiar with.