Introduction to language

1999/03/14 Azkune Mendia, Iñaki - Elhuyar Fundazioa

• Anatomia/Fisiologia

Since when does a young child jump from sounds to words that make sense? When a young child says "father" or "mother" we know that something has changed. At that very moment the child speaks, entering the world of language. A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins University has researched that from the sixth month children say words that make sense.

So far it was thought that for children to start saying meaningful words it took between 8 and 10 months. We also knew that from the fourth month they were aware of his name, although we did not know what the word is.

Scientists used 24 children aged six months to carry out the study. They took the child on the side of his father or mother and placed him in front of two television stations, one in which he drew the image of his father, the other of his mother. Through a synthesizing voice, the researchers have been able to know that, according to the image that appeared on television, the child emitted a sound or another, and -in addition, according to that image, the child held the same sound longer.

They also did an analysis against them, with images of others who were not their parents. In this case, the voice synthesizer has shown that although the sounds are repeated, in the duration they were much smaller than in the previous case, that is, they did not call them as parents. Researchers conclude that by the sixth month children know the meaning of "father" and "mother" and thus call no one.

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