When You Talk, You Wake The Child’s Brain

When you talk, you awaken the child’s brain. The regions of the brain that are involved in emotional responses, social interactions and facial recognition become activated. The same applies to the areas that determine which information is relevant.

This reaction occurs only when a baby hears its mother’s voice. Not when he or she hears other women’s. A new study, recently published by Harvard University, has shown this.

“We acquire part of our social awareness of language and emotional processes through the simple experience of listening to our mother.”  This is what the author of the study, Daniel Abrams, says in a statement published by the university.

The study’s findings surprised many in science, although there have already been studies that showed similar trends. Among other things, it was known that when a mother talks to her baby, it calms down . But they did not know that a mother’s voice would awaken the child’s brain in so many areas. Nor that it would happen so quickly and efficiently.

Abrams explains that some scientific studies have already shown that children prefer their mother’s voice over someone else’s. So far, however, no one has stated the causes of this phenomenon. “No one had taken the time to observe the circuits in the brain that perform these processes,” the researcher adds.

When you talk, you awaken the child’s brain

The research, which showed that you wake up the child’s brain when you talk, consisted of studying the brains of several children with computed tomography. They were studied while listening to their mother’s voice, and also to the voice of a foreign woman. The total sample included 24 children between the ages of 7 and 12, who had lived with their mothers throughout their lives.

In addition, they all had an IQ of at least 80. None of them suffered from any developmental delay or similar disorder.

First, parents had to fill out a brief questionnaire about their children’s communication skills. Then the mother was recorded when she said three nonsense words without meaning. “Because of the age of the children, it was better to use invented words so that they would not recognize them,” the authors added.

In addition, two women participated in the study, who were unknown to all the children. They also had to record three meaningless nonsense words. Finally, the children listened to both recordings.

The results showed that the children could recognize their mother’s voice in 97% of the cases. This even if they only listened for a second. “And the children’s brains reacted more and better to the mother’s voice than to that of a stranger,” the authors explained.

Your baby can recognize your voice before it is even born

The study’s findings complement the observations published by another group of scientists in 2014. They studied the reaction of premature babies when they listened to their mother’s voice. In this study, the researchers found that when a mother talks to her baby before he or she is born, it has several benefits. Among other things, her children eat better and calm down more easily when exposed to a stressful situation.

Listening to a mother’s voice lowers cortisol levels and increases oxytocin levels, which is the attachment hormone.

This connection between a child and its mother begins already in the womb.  There, the baby can already hear sounds and feel vibrations from his mother. When the baby is born, it can recognize its mother’s voice and prefer her over everyone else in the world.

At the same time, the researchers found that “The mother’s voice activates the anterior prefrontal cortex and posterior left temporal region more intensely than an unknown voice. This prepares the child for the specialized task of processing spoken language ”.

Abrams explains that although it was already known that hearing the sound of his mother’s voice gives emotional well-being to children, they have now discovered that the biological cycle behind this connection contributes to better social and communicative skills.

The results of the study show that when you talk to your child, many areas and systems in its brain are activated. This opens up the possibility of studying the effect of the mother’s voice on children with disabilities.

“It’s exciting to see that the sound of a mother’s voice evokes so many systems in her child’s brain,” Harvard researchers concluded.