Babies And Speech: Infants Need Free Tongue Movement To Decipher Some Sounds

Teething can be a traumatic time for a new baby; that's why teethers can help calm and soothe the child as his or her teeth are starting to come in. Yet could inhibiting an infants' tongue affect his or her ability to distinguish between speech sounds?

New findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that teething toys prevented six-month-old English-learning infants from distinguishing between different Hindi "d" sounds. Though babies can readily distinguish these different "d's" at this age, the study found that teethers resulted in the infants inability to move the tip of his or her tongue--thus resulting in difficulties distinguishing between the sounds. However, when the babies' tongues were free, there was no problem.

Of course, the study in no way means that parents shouldn't let their babies' have teethers or teething toys. However, it does call into question "how much time infants need with ‘free' tongue movement for speech perception to develop normally," according to the study authors, via a news release. Furthermore, this may also mean something for children regarding speech perception in infants with motor impairments of the mouth, including cleft palate, tongue-tie or paralysis.

"This study indicates that the freedom to make small gestures with their tongue and other articulators when they listen to speech may be an important factor in babies' perception of the sounds," concluded senior author Janet Werker, professor in the UBC Department of Psychology.

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