Early Speech Recognition in Children - Assignment Example

Early Speech Recognition in Children Introduction People generally believe that infants have very little mental development and therefore they have inadequate communication skills. Although babies cannot communicate verbally, they have the speech recognition skill even before they become one year old. Recently, a study conducted by researchers in the New York University proved that infants can accurately distinguish between speech and non-speech sounds of humans and animals. Earlier, some other studies identified that foetuses can hear sounds at 30 weeks and they can accurately recognise their mothers’ voice among other sounds. In order to distinguish between various voices, the child pays attention to the pattern of the speech but not to the speech’s content. This paper will evaluate various factors in a young child’s sensory environment that allows him to recognise speech. Early speech recognition in children Early speech recognition in children has been a topic for research for the last few decades. Many researchers indicate that babies have good speech recognition capacity by around 2 years of age. A study performed by the researchers at the Department of Psychology in the New York University (NYU) proved that babies, even infants under age of nine months, are able to clearly differentiate between speech and non-speech sounds made by humans and animals (Tharu 2012). According to Athena Vouloumanos, the leader of the research, argues that “infants’ speech perception is resilient and flexible” and the speech recognition is more appealing that what was thought earlier (ibid). In order to examine the early speech recognition capacity in infants, researchers observed infants’ responses to different human and parrot speech and non-speech sounds. An adult female voice is used for female sounds whereas the recorded parrot speech came from an African gray parrot called Alex. Both the human and parrot sounds included words ‘truck’, ‘dinner’, ‘treat’, and ‘two’.. When sounds like whistles and clearing of throat were used for human non-speech sounds, the parrot non-speech sounds embraced squawks and chirps (ibid). In addition, the researches paired those recorded sounds with a series of visuals including faces of female adults, checkerboard like image, and a cup. The result was very interesting. It was observed that the infants studied listened longer to human speech as compared to other human non-speech sounds regardless of the presence of visuals (ibid). According to the researchers, this finding clearly reflects infants’ speech recognition ability with less consideration given to the context. When paired with human-face and cup visuals, infants listened longer to parrot speech than they listened to non-speech sounds. It was surprising to see that infants could distinguish animal speech from other non-speech sounds even though only in some situations. (ibid). From this study, the researchers concluded that infants are capable of detecting various types of speeches even if visual cues are needed to support their understanding process. However, they do not make any comment on the sensory environment that facilitates this phenomenon. Factors influencing children’s early speech recognition Generally people hold the view that children are unable to comprehend the cause and effect, distinguish between the differences of reality and fantasy, or imagine others’ experiences. However many recent studies reflect that children can understand situations and learn things better than what one would have assumed before. The article “How babies think” written by Alson Gopnik provides some meaningful ideas regarding how babies can learn from statical patterns. Gopnik (2010) provides meaningful ideas regarding early speech recognition in children. “Studies suggest that children learn about the world in much the same way that scientists do – by conducting experiments, analyzing statistics, and forming intuitive theories of the physical, biological and psychological realms” (as cited in Gopnik 2010). Gopnik refers to the studies of Saffran, Aslin, and Newport to demonstrate that how babies learn from statistical patterns. The researchers played a number of syllables with statistical regularities to babies aged eight months. Then, they also played new strings of sounds that either followed the same patterns or broke them. They observed that babies listened longer to statistically unusual syllables played (ibid). Evidently, examining statistical patterns is the primary stage in the process of a scientific discovery. It is interesting to see that babies use those statistical patterns to draw some meaningful conclusions about their experiences. In addition, babies try to explore the cause and effect relationship of various events and experiments. It is clear that children do not experiment or perform statistical analyses in the self-conscious way to evaluate various situations and events. In contrast to this, children’s brains process information unconsciously in way that resembles the processes of a scientific discovery. As part of processing information, children’s brains relate hypotheses concerning the world to probability patterns. Scientists have observed that children reason in complex ways that are difficult to explain. It is also identified that children unconsciously use Bayesian statistical analysis (Gopink 2010). When they use such models, they can be better than adults in addressing unusual possibilities (ibid). There are many evolutionary and neurological factors that underpin the extraordinary learning abilities like speech recognition in very young children. Experts identify that human beings have a longer period of immaturity as compared to other species (Seidl-de-moura, et al 2009). Humans use this time to learn about the surrounding environment without actually doing anything. A number of neurological studies have been conducted to evaluate the brain mechanisms in humans during the period of immaturity. A common finding from all those studies is that baby brains perform better than adult brains in terms of flexibility. Baby brains have “far more connections between neurons, none of them particularly efficient, but over time they prune out unused connections and strengthen useful ones” (Gopnik 2010). It has also been observed that baby brains have increased the levels of chemicals that help brains change connections easily (ibid). Prefrontal cortex is a unique region of human brain and it takes a relatively longer time to mature. The adult human capacities such as focusing, planning, and efficient action are regulated by this brain region. The level of performance of these human capacities particularly depends on the long learning process that an individual undergoes during his childhood. The prefrontal cortex’s development would not be complete until an individual reaches his mid-20s (Zoumbaris 2012, p.22). Although lack of this brain region in young children appears to be a huge defect, this specific neurological condition is actually very helpful for the learning process (ibid). One of the major functions of the prefrontal cortex is to inhibit thoughts and actions that are likely to be irrelevant. Since such a mechanism is absent in young children, they can learn about the environment freely (Gopnik 2010). So when an adult has the ability to plan and act thoughtfully, a child is able to learn flexibly and explore creatively (Effective practice, n. d.) Hence, the increased flexibility of brain and the ability to explore creatively benefit children to recognise speech and non-speech sounds even in their infancy. Many experts indicate that children are born with a set of basic knowledge. Researchers claim that even newborn babies have some knowledge about people. For instance, newborn babies prefer to look at human face to other objects and imitate a number of facial movements including opening the mouth (Parker-Rees 2007). After several months, babies look at objects to which people point. Such a response certainly involves some elements of attention and communication. Babies also have knowledge about other people’s emotional expressions and their implications. Experiments show that babies have also some knowledge about objects although acts like movement or hiding of objects may confuse them. In the same way, babies are born with a basic understanding of languages. As many studies point out, in some perspectives, babies can better discriminate different sounds of language. Babies “can distinguish between any two sounds which represent distinct phonemes in any of the world’s languages” (Dowker 2003). However, babies over 10 months and adults can only distinguish between sounds that are related to their own languages. To illustrate, American babies are not able to understand the difference between the two Spanish ‘b’ sounds whereas Japanese babies are unable to distinguish between English ‘I’ and ‘r’. At the same time, they are good at distinguishing between the intonation patterns of their mother tongue and other languages. A one and half year old child may experience naming explosion (ibid). They show the ability to distinguish between the names of various objects. However, it must be noted that they can understand other important words also. The findings of Gopnik are supported by some recent experiments. In 2007, Laura Schulz and Elizabeth Baraff Bonawitz showed that when babies play, they also try to explore the cause and effect. In 2008, Fei Xu and Vashti Garcia experimentally proved that babies can understand probabilities (Gopnik & Calif 2009). In addition to these, very young children have a range of mental capabilities. They imagine and explore a wide variety of possibilities. They make decision with particular reference given to the selective information gathered and are very reluctant to give such ideas up and try something newer. It is a common belief among people is that their language is unique. A study conducted by Kuhl proved that this view is wrong. She argues that even newborn babies do not have any trouble in “hearing distinctions and sorting out sounds” (Bock 2005). She reflects that adults commonly use “high pitched, lilting mother-ese” to assist babies to gain language knowledge. Even though those babies can hear the sounds of all the languages, their brain adapt to a native tongue by their first birthday and they will lose ability to hear all such sounds accurately (ibid). Studies indicate that babies recognise their mothers’ voice even before they are born and they can distinguish it from all other voices. According to an ongoing research by a group of Canadian and Chinese researchers, children’s brains are recognising speech patterns and setting the background for language learning even while they are in their mothers’ wombs. Hence, an individual’s brain becomes prepared to learn language before his birth. Surprisingly, another study points that foetuses begin to hear sound at 30 weeks. This is the reason why mothers feel their baby jump inside the womb when wind makes the door/window slam. Some previous researches have already identified that newborn babies demonstrate a preference for their mothers’ voice. Some latest study results indicate that young children prefer similar sound even when they still in the womb. Foetuses have the ability to distinguish their mothers’ voice from all other sounds in spite of cultural differences. Therefore, it is evident that the speech recognition capacity is particularly connected to the neurological peculiarities of the brain. Barbara Kisilevsky, a nursing lecturer at Queens University in Ontario, conducted a series of studies with her colleagues in order to identify the voice recognition capacities of foetuses (Dye, n. d.) As part of the study, Kisilevsky chose 60 women in the final stage of their pregnancy. She asked all the 60 women to read a poem loudly and recorded it. Then, she divided the women into two groups. Thirty foetuses heard their own mothers’ recording whereas the other thirty foetuses heard the recording of another mother. Based on this experiment, Kisilevsky made some wonderful observations. She says that the poem resulted in a change in the baby’s heart rate in both the cases. The heart rate accelerated in some foetuses that heard their own mothers’ voice whereas foetuses’ heart rate decelerated that heard the voice of another mother (Dye, n. d.). This was the clear indication that foetuses listened to the voices they heard. In addition, the changes observed clearly point that they have accurately distinguished their mothers’ voice from that of others. Kisilevsky explains ‘an attention mechanism’ in young children that enable them to distinguish between various sounds (Prolife News). There was a deceleration in the heart rate of foetuses that heard an unfamiliar voice because they were closely listening to a voice that they could not recognise easily. In other words, those foetuses were attempting to figure out the owner of the voice. It is essential to notice that young children do not recognise the content of the speech/poem they hear but they recognise only the pattern of the speech. In other words, the pattern of the speech assists babies to distinguish between two different sounds. Generally, each individual has his own talking style. While speaking, individuals stop and breathe at different times and this difference sets the speech pattern of each individual. Since young children’s speech recognition capacity is directly connected to their learning and exploration practices, an individual born with a hearing loss may not have adequate speech and language skills (Hareyan 2012). Conclusion From the above discussion, it is identified that babies have speech recognition capacity even in their early stages of childhood. Some neurological features of the children’s brain play a key role in the sensory environment that allows this to happen. Studies indicate that a child’s brain is more flexible than an adult’s brain. The immature prefrontal cortex in very young children helps them learn things freely because their thoughts and acts are never inhibited even if they are irrelevant. An infant learns about his surrounding environment and other elements such as sounds in a similar way that a scientist makes a new discovery. Studies also reflect that young babies can distinguish their mothers’ voice from all other voices even while they are in the womb. For this, young children just listen to the pattern of the speech but not to its content. On the basis of pattern of the speech, an infant can distinguish between speech and non-speech sounds. References Bock, P. (2005) “How do babies learn to talk? Pacific Northwest”. [online document] available at [accessed 25 March 2013. Dye, L. (n. d.) Babies Recognize Moms Voice from the Womb. ABC News [online] available at [accessed 25 March 2013]. Dowker, A. 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