Talking to your baby early and often establishes stable foundation for listening and speaking, according to the BBC News. Babies can understand what you say to them.
Well, ok, not quite. But infants do comprehend and ingrain their ‘birth’ language, according to a recent article in the BBC News.
The study indicated in the first few months of their life, babies were quite impressionable when it came to communication skills.
Dr Jiyoun Choi of Hanyang University in Seoul, who led the research, proved adults removed from their ‘birth’ society and language as infants were able to recall nuances of its annunciation several years later in life.
The importance of communication is a principle we reinforce for children of age for enrollment in our preschool programs, including English tutoring and enrichment and writing tutoring and enrichment.
The study showed subjects born in Korea then adopted into Dutch-speaking families were studied for their speaking ability. Both before and after a short training course they were tested for their ability to pronounce Korean consonants.
In conjunction, Dutch-speaking individuals who never were exposed to the Korean language were also tested before and after the same short training course.
The Korean-born individuals with their very limited exposure to the language only as infants were able to aptly pronounce Korean consonants. They significantly outperformed the non-Korean-born individuals after the training course, as determined by native-Korean speaking evaluators.
There was also no difference in test performance between individuals exposed to the Korean language for the first 6 months of their life- before they actually learned to speak- and those exposed for the first 17 months of life- after they developed the ability to speak.
So what does this mean?
Language acquisition and knowledge starts very early and is “retained abstract in nature, rather [than] dependent on the amount of [language] experience,” according to the article.
We at FTKny.com strive to offer curriculum supplementing what children learn in school. Our programs also serve to supplement and appeal to your child’s strengths when it comes to communication and language.
“The study is the first to show that the early experience of adopted children in their birth language gives them an advantage decades later even if they think it is forgotten,” Dr Choi told BBC News. ”This finding indicates that useful language knowledge is laid down in [the] very early months of life, which can be retained without further input of the language and revealed via re-learning.”
”Please remember that [the] language learning process occurs very early in life, and useful language knowledge is laid down in the very early months of life as our study suggests,” Dr Choi continued. ”Try to talk to your babies as much as possible because they are absorbing and digesting what you are saying.”
Our tutoring and learning centers are different than typical tutoring centers; we don’t teach the child just one way of doing things, rather, we entertain their individuality to address their needs accordingly.
Our teachers recognize each child’s style of learning and leverage this to their advantage, preventing those who are slower learners from being left behind in their curriculum.
If you are interested in learning more regarding how we can cater to your child, sign up for a free trial class.
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