Baby? Can I teach him languages please?

I have exciting news!

My sister just had a baby! He's my first nephew and I am so excited!!!!

Isn't he precious?!?!

I joke about how I am going to teach him all of these languages, but first, let's talk about how babies do learn languages.

This topic goes perfectly as the first post this month as it is Better Speech and Hearing Month, a month where all of the SLPs and audiologists get to share what their professions are all about and teach everyone a little more about language, speech, disability, communication, and hearing. There's actually like 15 different subcategories within that, but let's leave that for another day, shall we?

Infant Language Development: The cool stuff

In the first year of life, babies are really trying to figure out what communication is. It starts with moments like Ok, I'm crying... now I get food... hmm that worked out well. The baby is making connections in the brain based on each experience. He/she finds that certain sounds, movements, facial expressions, and even bodily noises will get a different response. A baby will start off with one main cry, then start to change up the type of crying based on the need (food, sleep, diaper change, attention), and will then start to incorporate other types of sounds made (grunts, laughs, whines, babbles), until finally a first word emerges around 1 year of age.

Receptively, something really cool is happening. While the baby is learning that words have meaning, such as when Mom says "dog" and baby looks over at the dog, or that sounds have meaning, such as when Mom uses her angry voice, the baby is also learning the sound properties of the language (or languages) that he is learning. The following facts are from Dual Language Development and Disorders-2nd edition by Paradis, Genesee, and Crago (2011).

• Even within the first day after being born, babies tend to prefer listening to their mothers' voices over other women's voices. (I'm guessing they remember it from the womb. SO COOL!)
• Babies can differentiate between their native language and a foreign language by 4 1/2 months, and even earlier if the languages have different rhythmic patterns.
• After 6 months, the baby will be able to discriminate between speech sounds (e.g. b vs p) only if the difference occurs in their native language. (So he wouldn't be able to tell the difference between an arabic ذ and ظ for example. For my English speakers, one might describe those as a voiced /th/ and a stronger voiced /th/. 🤷

So this means that if I am to teach my nephew some foreign languages, I would need to be talking to him A LOT in that language, so that he can become familiar with the rhythm, speech sounds, and tones of the language. Seeing as I am hours and hours away from this precious infant, this will not happen 😒 I can only keep trying to convince my sister to get him enrolled in a bilingual daycare or with a nanny. 😳

This is why it can be difficult for adult language-learners to even perceive new sounds in another language, not to mention actually producing them. There are a few language-learning methods that focus on this skill from the very beginning.

In my next post, I want to discuss the similarities and differences of learning your first language (as a child) vs learning a foreign language (as an adult). Stay tuned!

If you want to learn more about the speech and language milestones for babies 0-12 months, check out the American Speech Language and Hearing Association's website:
https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/01/