Miraculous abilities of babies

Babies seem silly in the first 6 months of life, but scientists are increasingly surprised to discover many extraordinary abilities of children that adults do not have.

Marvel at the miraculous abilities of babies

From " infant " - newborn, in Latin means " not talking ", but children have built up the linguistic foundation since before sentient beings, by reacting to the humming sounds in amniotic fluid. As soon as they were born, babies were sophisticated and passionate analysts, able to see details in a world that adults and older children could not see.

Recently, scientists have found:

The first 1 hour of birth: imitating adult gestures.

Move your lips and tongue, change the shape of your mouth, smile with your eyes, children can re-establish the way it sees on their faces.

After a few days of age: babies can distinguish their native and foreign languages.

3 months old: know what others mean.

British scientists emit sounds like human voices, laughter, crying, yawning . for babies while sleeping. Thanks to the IRM brainwave camera, they observed the reaction. In the anterior temporal cortex, the area that specializes in the treatment of adult sounds, has been active. The researchers also found that the sad sound also caused the cortex of the frontal and medullary lobes, the emotional processing area, to function. Thus, 3-month-old babies know their mother and the whole family is happy and sad.

When 4-5 months : children can read lips, match faces on dumb videos with " ee " and " ah " sounds.

The latest results announced that 4-month-old babies may indicate if someone is speaking in their mother tongue without sound, just watch the silent video on the screen. However, this ability will be lost by 8 months of age, if the child is not raised in a bilingual environment.

Infants can recognize vowels and consonants of all languages ​​in the world, and they can recognize the difference of sounds in foreign languages ​​that adults are almost blind.

Infants in the first 6 months can see the difference between the two monkey faces that adults think are identical, and pair the monkey's cry with their faces.

Infants are rhythm experts , able to distinguish the rhythm of their culture from other cultures.

In fact, all of these skills will decline as the child crosses the 6-month-old mark and learns to eliminate less valuable information.

The new study showed 36 newborn babies watched three videos in which one spoke two English-French languages. "After all we tested, babies showed these extraordinary skills," said Whitney M. Weikum at the University of British Columbia.

Research also shows that language is a dimensional polyphonic experience. "We not only see a rose. We feel the softness of the rose petals and smell its scent," said George Hollich at Purdue University. "Likewise, language is not just about hearing and seeing the word 'roses.' We will immediately relate the word to its shape, feel and smell, even the image of the person who said it. This study shows that babies can recognize some languages ​​just by looking at their faces.

7 months old : know to recognize fear

Finnish researchers discovered this when measuring the EEG of a newborn in 2009. At 5 months of age, the Brain Power was no different when it came to viewing pictures of a smiling or crying face. But at 7 months of age, there was a clear difference. The time to pay attention on the face is longer. Thus, at this age, the child knows to decipher the facial expressions of the adults around him and learn from them the dangers that they must be alert when they are no longer protected by their parents.

8 months of age: knowing the desire for justice

In order to understand children's views on punishment, researchers once again showed them a drama with two ' good characters ' and 'evil characters' playing a ball. There are two new characters appearing: one who gives the ball to both and one who robs their ball. 5-month-old children want to play with the one who gives the ball to two ' good characters' and 'evil characters'. But the other 8-month-old is different: they enjoy the jerk of the ball from the 'evil character '. In other words, they want someone to punish the 'evil character' , taking the ball from his hand.

13 months: judgment

If an adult pretends to be happy in front of an empty box, the child knows how to lose confidence . Indeed, Concordia University researchers in Montréal (Canada) have demonstrated: if these adults themselves then did odd moves such as using their heads to hold electrical switches, only 34% of children caught follow.

But if an adult is considered reliable (without a false reaction to an empty box), 64% of children will mimic his actions like turning on a new style light switch. On the other hand, Hungary scholars prove that 14-month-old children only imitate a new technique if it seems more effective. If the adult uses the head to turn the power off because the hands are tied, the child will not imitate. For them, the technique of implementing this mandatory situation is not worth studying because it is not as effective as using a hand.

15 months of age: knowing the intentions of others

An adult plays with 15-month-old children. He tried to find a doll with blue pigtails hidden in two boxes. While he was absent, a box was exchanged. Beneath the lid, there were some blue hair that made people mistake the doll inside. The children saw all these fraudulent movements. Where will the adult find the doll? In a fake box or in a box with a doll? This experiment was conducted at the University of Illinois (USA) in 2008, showing that children were not surprised when they saw an adult opening a box with a wig sticking out.

They think that adults cannot know they have been cheated and put themselves in their shoes. On the contrary, when adults look at a box without a blue wig, they are surprised and wonder why he did not pay attention to the box. This reaction shows that the "hot sprouts of wisdom" appeared very early in children. It reveals 'all processes of understanding' that allow people to understand the intentions, beliefs and desires of others.

18 months old: know abstract reasoning

Reasoning 18-month-old children is better than older children! They were given by Caren Wlaker and colleagues at Berkeley University (California). They placed two different shapes in turn on a box in front of 18-month-old babies. When two blocks of the same shape are placed one after another, a stream of music emits. After three continuous attempts, the children understand the process and they help the researcher find blocks and shapes that music can emit.

This experiment was repeated with children in kindergarten. What is amazing is that they are not as successful as 18-month-old children. Caren Walker analyzed: 'Older children are actually more capable of inferring'. According to her, actually learning can harm children's ability to reason abstractly .