出国留学首选一诺留学

　　"Babies come prepared to learn any of the world'slanguages."

　　Alison Bruderer, a cognitive scientist at theUniversity of British Columbia.

　　"Which means no matter where they're growing up inthe world, their brains are prepared to pick up thelanguage they're listening to around them."

　　And listen they do.But another key factor to discerning a language's particular sounds maybe for babies to move their tongues as they listen.

　　Bruderer and her colleagues tested that notion by sitting 24 sixth-month-olds in front of avideo screen and displaying a checkerboard pattern, while they played one of two tracks:

　　a single, repeated "D" sound in Hindi,or two slightly different, alternating "D" sounds.

　　The idea here is that babies have a short attention span, so novel things hold their gaze.

　　And indeed, the babies did stare at the screen longer while the alternating "D"s played than forthe single“D”—indicating they could detect the novelty.

　　Until, that is, the researchers blocked the babies' tongue movements by having them suck on ateething device.

　　Then the effect disappeared, with the babies unable to differentiate single D sound fromalternating D sounds.

　　And when the babies used a different teether that did not block tongue movement, they onceagain appeared to comprehend the difference between the Ds.

　　The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

　　So is it time to pull the pacifier? "

　　At this point I don't think that these data suggest parents should be taking away teethers orsoothers.

　　The majority of infants are chewing on something semi-regularly most of the day.

　　And most of these infants do go on to develop speech normally."

　　So not to worry.Bruderer says the research might instead offer insight into how children withoral motor impairments or cleft palate perceive speech...

　　now that we know the tongue really does matter, when first learning a tongue.