Babies at 6 months: they already understand the meaning of words

Many moms will surely have experienced that their baby seems to understand words long before he starts talking. The sixth sense of mothers is never wrong. And in fact a research that has studied the behavior of children from 6 to nine months, and published in the authoritative magazine ” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “, has highlighted, contrary to what some scholars think, that understanding the language begins in the “pre-linguistic” age.

The research was conducted at the University of Pennsylvania by psychologists Elika Bergelson and Daniel Swingley

The two psychologists recruited 33 children between 6 and 9 months and another 50 between 10 and 20 months into the study.

The test consisted in evaluating the persistence of the gaze on an object whose name had been heard.

The children (in the arms of their parents who, however, could not see the same thing) were shown a monitor in which objects or parts of the body were displayed. Parents received indications on the things to ask via headphones (not seeing the monitor, they did not know what the children were seeing).

At the words “Look at the apple”, or “Where’s the hand?”, said by the parents, an automatic device monitored the child’s gaze to understand the points where his gaze rested.

Evaluating the recordings it emerged that in fact the children rested their gaze on the objects whose name they had heard, thus indicating that they understood the association between the visual image and the word heard.

“The amazing thing is that kids that age don’t talk, they don’t walk, they don’t point,” said Bergelson. “But apparently, underneath the surface, they are trying to put together the things of the world and the words that identify them.”

I admit that I was absolutely not surprised by the results of this study and I think all mothers with children of this age can confirm it, right?