How Babies Learn, When, and Even In What Position

january 11, 2013

Babies and Intelligence: The Latest Findings

From VOA Learning English, this is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in Special English. I’m June Simms.

And I’m Christopher Cruise. Today, we examine recent findings about how intelligence develops in babies. We look at when and how babies learn, and the importance of early contact with languages.

Not long ago, many people believed that babies only wanted food and to be kept warm and dry. Some people thought babies were not able to learn things until they were five or six months old. But doctors in the United States now say babies begin learning on their first day of life.

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is a federal government agency. The Institute says babies are strongly influenced by their environment. It says a baby will smile if his or her mother does something the baby likes.

A baby learns to get the best care possible by smiling to please her mother or other caregiver. This is how babies learn to connect and communicate with other people.

The researchers say this ability to learn exists in a baby even before birth. They say newborn babies can recognize and understand sounds they heard while they were still developing inside their mothers.

Recently, an American study of 112 babies found they learned better when they were sitting up, not lying down. The babies appeared to learn better whether they were sitting up on their own, sitting in seats or helped to sit up.