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Communication
Before Language Babies
in the womb who have normal hearing and a normally stimulating environment are
pre-pared to send and receive messages without benefit of the words, syllables,
and phrases that begin appearing in a year or two after birth. Their daily
experiences of communication are punctuated by self-initiated and reactive
movements which express needs, interests, and feelings. This mode of
communication continues through the life span and constitutes a truly universal
human language. Based
on the early development of the senses, all of which develop in utero and
function from early in gestation, the fetus remains in constant dialog with the
surrounding environment. (See The Fetal Senses) This body talk includes
responding to tastes and odors by abrupt behavior changes showing pleasure or
displeasure; reacting against strong light, noise, pressure, or pain by gestures
of defense or escape; and reacting to music by wild kicking or by calming down
to listen or rest. One should not argue with body talk. Ultrasound
observations of behavior in the womb reveal that fetuses experience and express
emotion. Observations made between 16 and 20 weeks of gestation have revealed
fearful react-ions to amniocentesis including extreme fluctuations in heart
rate, as well as withdrawal from normal activity for a period of hours or days.
With increasing use of amniocentesis, women are witnessing aggressive actions
toward the needle itself: the baby attacking the needle barrel from the side!
Observation of twins via ultrasound is revealing an unexpected range of feelings
ex-pressed by holding hands, kissing, playing, kicking and hitting each other!
This dialog before birth was not predicted. The
ability to signal distress by crying is a familiar aspect of infant behavior.
Cries are often compelling. Babies need no lessons in how to cry, although
adults need lessons in interpreting them. Technical measurements reveal that
cries contain much information about disease, malnutrition, and genetic defects.
Babies are sensitive to each other,s cries, discriminate between ani-mal, human,
and electronic cry sounds. They respond most strongly to cries of babies their
own ages. The emotional turmoil which crying expresses can already exist in the
womb and may be vocalized if air reaches the area around the fetal larynx. This
intrauterine crying is termed "vagitus uterinus” (literally, squalling in
the womb) and is well documented in medical literature. Over one hundred cases
have been reported. At
birth, body talk is eloquent whether asserting anger and rage in clenched fists
or in relaxed gestures - even smiles - conveying pleasure. Newborns clearly
communicate their feelings about what has happened to them by contortions of the
face, writhing movements of the torso, flailing movements of arms and legs, by
changing color to angry red, dangerous blue or yellow, as well as by reassuring
coos and gurgles. These
obvious skills of communication displayed by both prenates and newborns
accompany skills of perception. Babies begin formal language training in the
womb. An early discovery using acoustic spectrography revealed that the initial
cry of a 900 gram baby already contained intonations, rhythms, and other speech
features of the baby,s mother. By about 26 weeks of gestation, this baby had
acquired certain features of its "mother tongue. More
recent studies reveal unexpected learning of story passages and child rhymes in
utero - a precocious demonstration of language perception. After birth, babies
show more interest in listening to an adult speaking in the mother tongue rather
than in a different language. Language studies show that babies perceive the
smallest units of sound - the phonemes - even better than adults do for about
the first year of life. Superior lip-reading skills are seen when babies quickly
detect which sound track matches the talking faces they are watching. They also
quickly spot the appropriate emotional sound track for the faces they are
watching. In addition to these lip reading skills, both premature and fullterm
babies read faces well, and can immediately imitate a wideopen mouth, a
protruding tongue, and expressions of happiness, sadness, or surprise. Prenates and newborns arrive in this world equipped with universal human languages made possible by the voluntary movement which begins around ten weeks gestational age, and by the early development of touch, taste/odor, hearing, and vision. The communication repertoire includes verbal and nonverbal expressions, body color, emo-tion, cry sounds, hand gestures, a range of facial statements, instant imitation, and lipreading. Thus, all humans are prepared to send and receive messages long before the development of formal language. (Oslo,
13 jan 05) |
