It was long believed that babies learned to talk by listening. But new research suggests that youngsters lip-read, a development that could have implications for diagnosing autism earlier.
The findings come from a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looking at how children ages 4 months, 6 months, 8 months, 10 months and 12 months react to speech.
For the study, researchers at Florida Atlantic University monitored eye gaze while the kids watched videos of women speaking in English — the children’s only native language — or Spanish.
As the children started to babble, the researchers found that they focused on the mouth of the person speaking to them. But months later, as the kids became more comfortable with language, they shifted their attention to the eyes.
This pattern was interrupted, however, when children heard a foreign tongue. Then, they tended to revert back to lip-reading in an attempt to decipher the unfamiliar sounds.
The new understanding of how children acquire language skills could offer a window to identifying kids with autism at younger ages, the researchers said. Previous research has suggested that children with autism focus on the mouth of the person speaking to them at 2-years-old while their typically developing peers focus on the talker’s eyes.
“When these facts are combined with our findings, it is likely that, contrary to typically developing children, infants who are as yet undiagnosed but who are at risk for autism may continue to focus on the mouth of a native-language talker at 12 months of age and beyond,” said David Lewkowicz, a professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University who led the study.
“If so, this would provide the earliest behavioral confirmation of impending developmental disability and would give clinicians an early start on intervention procedures aimed at lessening or preventing the most devastating effects of autism and other communicative disorders,” he said.
Fascinating… Could you please cite/link the research? I am very interested in exploring it.
Thanks so much for sharing this insight!
Joshua, you can find the article via the PNAS website (they may have you pay $10) or go to http://psy2.fau.edu/~lewkowicz/cdlfau/publications.htm where the pdf will be linked in a day or two.
Amy Hansen-Tift (researcher on this paper)
Our daughter was diagnosed hearing impaired at 3 months many years ago. At the time parents were discouraged from using sign language. Not hearing sound, she focused on our moving lips, and not long after her first birthday “said” things like “all gone, hot, blue” by mouthing them without any vocalization. Deaf babies whose parents begin using sign language early focus on their hands and mouth and began to respond with signs and mouthing before age one. It appears visual input is important for language aquisition.
Perfect timing of this article.. my son has just started lip reading. I noticed recently that his eyes follow my lips as I speak. It helps him understand what I am saying I know it does. I really think this is very useful. I learn to slow my talking and probounce so he can read my lips better. Also, I think we parents should American learn sign language. Although our kids aren’t deaf they have the same struggles as people who are deaf. Since I don’t know sign language so I’ve been making up my own hand signs to aid his understanding. It’s working.
I am a mother of a 19 yr old Aspergers son (now in college) and when he was an infant, I signed language ( I already worked with the deaf), spoke after he looked at my signing to make the eye contact which he did not like, and then showed him black and white books and read, read, read. He is now in college. No social skills still ( of which I did all the the PT’s OT’s skill groups etc.) He has poor transfer skills. If you would like to talk with me plez feel free to email. Hope is there.
Sue Rose
What happened to my first comment?
This will be shorter in case you zap me again.
This is not new–I knew and I assume many mothers knew that babies watch lips and copy them.