Learning a language demands so many complicated steps that it’s tempting to quit before we start. Luckily, tiny tots are too young to opt out of their first language class. Nature primes them to pay rapt attention straight from lesson one.

The bell for language class rings before birth
Our powerful urge to communicate has inspired a profusion of languages. Each is a code a community shares: a set of rules applied to combine sounds in patterns that transmit thoughts, feelings and instructions. When children learn the unique codes for their native languages, they absorb sounds common to their language, how those sounds form words, what words mean and how to arrange words to transmit concepts. They also grasp pitch and sound level as well as how to apply words to appropriate situations and understand responses.

Language lessons for the littlest pupils begin before they greet the world in person. Researchers have found that fetuses hear spoken language filtering in from outside the uterus at about 30 weeks. After birth, babies immediately prepare for language development by communicating primitively but very effectively, as many a harried parent knows. Crying evokes quick response: a caregiver reacts. Other exchanges are calmer but just as compelling. When dad catches his child’s eye, the infant avidly holds the gaze. When mom coos at her new arrival, she receives undivided attention.

Babies are already language Einsteins
Language development proceeds speedily for infants, fueled by inborn ability and a thirst for interaction. Merely by experiencing the linguistic riches of speech, song and more, language develops without special teaching. In other words, parents need not purchase educational videotapes or stock the CD cabinet to promote communication skills.

Babies have sophisticated tools already on board, and they rely on themearly, even if they don’t understand their significance, to grasp:

Though parents need not put infants through language paces, they are definitely equipped to put in their two cents, so to speak. Parents the world over talk to infants in ways that build proficiency – using a high-pitched voice, speaking slowly, favoring short phrases, and repeating individual words frequently. Many parents keep up a running patter if their babies are present as they do errands, work, and prepare meals. “Parentese,” as experts call it, powerfully influences language development and neatly coincides with the time kids absorb language most avidly. In fact, evidence suggests that a child’s language fluency may be permanently compromised if learning doesn’t begin within the first three years.

Tell me more, tell me more
Speech is the most notable evidence of language development and the one that particularly grabs parents’ attention. Playgroup parents inevitably compare: “Matthew says eight words now. How many do you hear from Ethan?” It’s reassuring to remember that speech development is very individual, though there are basic guidelines pediatricians follow. For instance, most babies babble by about three months. “Blowing raspberries is another sign of language development and speech preparation, and we usually ask about that at well appointments,” says Doylestown Hospital pediatrician Becky Thomas- Creskoff, MD.

Dr. Thomas finds that parents who are suspicious that something may be wrong with their child’s speech development may be reluctant to mention it. Speak up, she advises, because progress may be delayed by easily addressed factors. For instance, children with frequent ear infections may not hear well; treating the problem gets language and speech back on track. More serious delays may be inherited or even environmental – the child isn’t exposed enough to language, for instance. Scientists are working to sort out which difficulties respond to intervention and which simply resolve with growth. In the meantime, speech therapy employs very effective techniques.

Once they start, there’s no stopping the conversation
Leading a language tutorial may not be necessary, but let’s face it – we can’t resist grinning and babbling at the babies in our lives. Interactive infant games include:

As babies become toddlers:

All too soon, babies become talented teens who perhaps master the subject a little too well, wielding it to critique parental statements and select the perfect insult to irritate siblings. And those early years of language development? They seem like music to our ears!

Dr. Becky Thomas-Creskoff is with Buckingham Pediatrics.