Babies learn bilingualism from the womb

Babies living in a bilingual environment learn the difference between the two languages from the womb, according to a study published this week in the U.S. journal Psychological Science.

Researchers in psychology from the University of British Columbia in Canada and a researcher at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have studied two groups of newborns.

In the first group, babies heard English being still in the womb, while the second group heard both English and Tagalog, spoken in philippines.

To determine the preference of infants to language, researchers have studied their sucking reflex that, when increases, means an interest of the newborn to a stimulus.

In a first experiment, children listened to 10 minutes of alternating every minute speech between English and Tagalog. The babies had been exposed to English before birth "showed a sucking reflex more important" to listen to the English than listening to Tagalog. Those who had heard both languages showed no preference.

Another experiment was to talk to babies in a language until they no longer show any interest. Another person then took over to talk to them either in the same language or the other.

The researchers found that the sucking reflex increased only when infants heard the second person to speak in another language.

The experiment "suggests that bilingual babies, like those who are not are able to differentiate between two languages".  There is a mechanism in the early moments of life that helps bilingual children avoid confusing the two languages, an essential condition for learning bilingualism.

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