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| 7 amazing things a baby can do |
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Babies are really are amazing little things. Underneath all of that newborn squishiness and drool they are a hive of learning, and are capable of far more things than we ever give them credit for.
This week 7 amazing things your baby can do, which you may not have known about.
They can remember a book read to them in utero
A study was undertaken where a group of pregnant women were given one of three stories to read out loud to their baby twice a day for the last six weeks of the pregnancy. After birth, the babies listened to recordings of the stories they had been read while sucking on a dummy. Those babies who listened to the story they had been read while in utero sucked more frequently; those that hadn't heard the story before didn't react. This change in sucking frequency suggests that they recognised the story.
They know the difference between right & wrong
By six months of age, babies seem able to make judgements about behaviour being right or wrong. A study, by Paul Bloom had infants watch a puppet pushing a ball up a hill. A second puppet then either helped or hindered the effort. Later, when given a choice between puppets, babies played more with the helper puppet. Some even pushed away the puppet that hindered the efforts. Even when the study was done with infants as young as three months, who weren't old enough to physically play with a puppet, they spent more time looking at the helping puppet, suggesting that an understanding of good and bad behaviour is in place by just 12 weeks old.
They already understand their native language
Babies begin to learn their native language while within the womb, and can identify their mother tongue when only hours old. A study of forty infants around 30 hours old was undertaken in Stockholm, Sweden, where the babies listened to vowel sounds in both foreign languages and their mother tongue, while sucking on a dummy.
Longer and shorter sucks on the dummy were used to indicate learning and recognition, as it shows that infants can tell the difference between the sounds. In the study, the babies sucked shorter for the native tongue than they did for the foreign language sounds. This shows that the babies appeared to recognise the sounds from their mother tongue, and have a basic sense of what their native language sounds like.
They recognise their mother's voice
A study found that babies in the womb actively listen to their mother's voice during the last weeks of pregnancy, and newborn babies recognise their mothers' voice at birth. They respond to this sound above all others.
Babies have more bones than adults
Despite being so small, babies have more bones than adults! Babies are born with 300 bones, where a grown adult has 206. This is because babies are born with more cartilage and small bones which gradually fuse together and turns into single bones over a period of time.
They have superhuman strength
An infant's grip is so strong; it is believed it can hold their own weight. Called the palmer grasp, it is present at birth and remains until five or six months of age. It happens when you stroke an infant’s palm, or place something in her hand.
They can judge characters
Babies learn by copying adults, but a study found that they are selective over who they mimic. Researchers took two groups of babies, aged between 13 and 16 months. One group sat with an adult who looked inside a box with excitement, and then handed the box to the baby to discover the box was empty. The second group also sat with an adult who looked inside a box with excitement, but for this group, when the baby looked inside there was a toy. Following this, each baby watched the same adult do something irrational – use their forehead to turn on a light switch instead of hands. Only 34% of the group with the unreliable adult copied the behaviour, whereas 61% of the group with the reliable adult copied.
Study researcher, Ivy Brooker, said "This shows infants will imitate behaviour from a reliable adult… In contrast, the same behaviour performed by an unreliable adult is interpreted as irrational or inefficient, therefore not worth imitating."
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