Children Learn Language Earlier “Than We Thought”

Children are like little detectives, constantly gathering clues about the world around them. If you notice your child staring at you while you speak, it’s because they are not just picking up sounds—they are also learning how to produce them.

A recent study published in Developmental Science shows that this fascinating process begins as early as four months old, challenging the long-held belief that children acquire these patterns only after adjusting to their native language between 6 and 12 months of age.
This also gives us an early opportunity to support children who may be at risk for speech or language delays.

Sorting Through a Variety of Sounds

By their first birthday, children have already started tuning their ears to the sounds of their native language in a process known as “perceptual tuning.”

However, during their first six months, infants can distinguish between sounds and languages they have never heard before.

This remarkable ability, however, does not last forever. Between six and twelve months, children begin to narrow their focus to the sounds they hear most often.

For vowels, this fine-tuning starts around the sixth month, while consonants follow at around the tenth month.

Think of it as children focusing on important sounds, such as the difference between r and l in English, while gradually losing sensitivity to sounds they do not hear regularly.
Until now, researchers believed that this narrowing process was essential for children to start developing more complex language skills, such as recognizing that the b in bin and the d in din are different because one is made with the lips and the other with the tip of the tongue.

But our study found that as early as four months old, infants are already learning how to physically produce sounds—long before this filtering process begins.