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CHILD GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING* 3 HOURS * LEVEL 2

Speech and Language Milestones

Prenatal Language Development

Page 6
Believe it or not, language development begins before a child is even born.

Brain and physical development begin during prenatal development time and play key roles in language development. If a child has the physical and cognitive abilities to perceive its native language then language development has a better opportunity to flourish in a typical path. If there are challenges to the physical and cognitive systems that create and perceive spoken language then the opposite can be true. 
In 2011 a Canadian study was conducted by May, Byers-Heinlein, Gervain, and Werker to determine the level of neonatal brain development as it pertained to newborn responses to language and speech. The study exposed newborn children (0-3 days old) to low frequency sound clips of their native language (English or Tagalog), a non-native language (again, English or Tagalog), and a non-language (English or Tagalog played backward). What was found largely supported previous studies and research that established a strong connection between language exposure developed in utero and a newborn child’s brain response to speech processing.​
​During pregnancy, a fetus’s peripheral auditory system is fully developed at about 26 weeks of gestation (May, Byers-Heinlein, Gervain, and Werker, 2011). In addition to this, low frequency sounds are easily transferred to fetal ears through amniotic fluid. This means that the fetus gains much of spoken language well before it is even born! Even further, there have been many studies that have shown incredible language and speech development information for fetuses and newborn babies. This includes evidence of recalling children’s stories read only during pregnancy, a preference for their mother’s voice, recognition of pitch and rhythm, and response to certain phonetic information.