summary: The rhythm of an infant’s heart rate is closely related to early vocalizations such as cooing, babbling, and the production of words. Researchers found that babies are most likely to make sounds when their heart rate is at its highest or lowest, and speech-like sounds occur when their heart rate is slowing down. did.
This relationship highlights how heart rate and motor coordination develop in tandem to support language acquisition. These findings may help identify early risk factors for language and communication disorders in infants.
Important facts:
- Heart rate peaks and audio: Babies vocalize more and longer sounds are observed at the peak of their heart rate.
- Heart rate deceleration: Recognizable speech-like sounds coincide with a decrease in heart rate.
- Motor and speech coordination: Infant language relies on the synchrony of vocalizations and autonomic rhythms.
sauce: University of Houston
The soft, gentle murmurs of a baby’s first facial expressions are like little whispers of joy and surprise to loving parents, but they are actually signs that the baby’s heart is working rhythmically in time with the development of language. .
Jeremy I. Boljon, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Houston, reports: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Your baby’s first sweet sounds and early attempts to form words are directly related to your baby’s heart rate.
This finding has implications for understanding language development and potential early indicators of language and communication disorders.
For young children, producing recognizable sounds is more than just a cognitive process. This is a motor skill that requires you to learn to coordinate multiple muscles with different functions throughout your body. This adjustment is directly related to the ongoing fluctuations in heart rate.
Dr. Borjon investigated whether these heart rate fluctuations corresponded with vocal production and word production in 24-month-old babies.
He found that heart rate variability coincided with the timing of vocalizations and was related to the length of vocalizations and the likelihood of producing recognizable speech.
“Heart rate naturally fluctuates in all mammals, steadily increasing and decreasing in a rhythmic pattern. Infants have a tendency to experience heart rate fluctuations with local peaks (maximum) or local troughs (minimum). ),” Borgion reports.
“The utterances made at the peak were longer than expected by chance. Vocalizations made just before the trough when the heart rate was slowing were more likely to be recognized as words by a naive listener. Masu.”
Borjon and his team measured a total of 2,708 vocalizations made by 34 infants aged 18 to 27 months while playing with their caregivers.
Infants in this age group typically do not yet speak whole words, and only a small portion (10.3%) of their utterances can be reliably identified as words by a naive listener. The researchers looked at the heart rate dynamics of all the sounds coming from a baby’s mouth: laughter, babbling, and cooing.
“Every sound that young children make helps their brains and bodies learn how to coordinate with each other, which ultimately leads to language,” Borjon said.
As infants grow, their autonomic nervous system, the part of the body that controls functions such as heart rate and breathing, grows and develops. Significant changes occur in heart and lung function during the first few years of life, and these changes continue throughout life.
“The relationship between recognizable vocalizations and lower heart rate suggests that successful language development depends, in part, on whether infants experience a predictable range of autonomous activity throughout development. It may suggest that.
“Understanding how the autonomic nervous system is involved in infant vocalizations during development will inform future research to understand how language emerges and the risk factors for atypical language development.” “This is an important tool,” Professor Borjon said.
About this language and neurodevelopment research news
author: Laurie Fickman
sauce: University of Houston
contact: Laurie Fickman – University of Houston
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
“Recognizability and timing of infant vocalizations are related to heart rate variability” written by Jeremy I. Boljon et al. PNAS
abstract
Recognizability and timing of infant vocalizations are related to heart rate variability
For human infants, producing recognizable sounds is more than just a cognitive process. This is a motor skill that requires young children to learn to coordinate multiple muscles with different functions throughout the body.
This adjustment is directly related to the ongoing fluctuations in heart rate. Physiological processes that scaffold behavior.
We investigated whether continuous heart rate fluctuations coincided with vocalizations and word formation in 24-month-old infants. Infants are most likely to vocalize when their heart rate fluctuations reach a peak (maximum) or trough (minimum).
Vocalizations made at the peak coincidentally were longer than expected. Functionally, utterances made immediately before the trough when heart rate was slow were more likely to be recognized as words by naive listeners.
Therefore, in the developing infant, heart rate fluctuations coincide with the timing of vocalizations and are associated with vocalization duration and the likelihood of recognizable vocalizations.
Our results have broad and immediate implications for our understanding of normative language development, the evolutionary basis and physiological processes of speech production, and potential early indicators of speech and communication disorders.
