Haskins Publications

Number	1233
Year	2001
Drawer	23
Entry Date	09/10/2001
Authors	Pettito, L.A., Holowka, S., Sergio, L.E. & Ostry, D.
Contact
Publication	Nature 413, 6 Sept., 35-36
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1233.pdf
Abstract	[Introduction] The vocal babbling sounds universally uttered by healthy babies at around 7 months of age are fascinating, and have been interpreted as reflecting both the origins of language production in humans and the vestiges of the evolutionary origins of language in our species. Here we study the hand movements of hearing babies born to profoundly deaf parents and find that these children produce a class of hand activity that is distinct from other uses of their hands and which contains the specific rhythmic patterns of natural language (‘silent babbling’). Our findings support the idea that babies are sensitive to rhythmic language patterns and that this sensitivity is key to launching the process of language acquisition.
Notes