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Babies Lip-Read Before Talking
from Science News
When adults mouth off, babies learn by watching. As infants start babbling at around age 6 months in preparation for talking, they shift from focusing on adults' eyes to paying special attention to speakers' mouths, a new study finds.
As tots become able to blurt out words and simple statements at age 1, they go back to concentrating on adults' eyes, say psychologist David Lewkowicz and psychology graduate student Amy Hansen-Tift, both of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Whereas babbling babies match up what adults say with how they say it, budding talkers can afford to look for communication signals in a speakers' eyes, the scientists propose in a paper published online January 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Babies start to lip-read when they learn to babble," Lewkowicz says. "At that time, infants respond to what they see and hear as a unified stimulus."
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