Prenatal Bilingual Exposure Shapes Newborns' Brain Responses to Speech

Study finds that babies exposed to multiple languages in utero develop broader sensitivity to sound variations compared to monolingual counterparts.

Newborns from bilingual mothers show distinct brain responses to a wider range of speech sounds.
Monolingual-exposed babies are more attuned to the specific pitch of their native language.
The study was conducted in Catalonia, involving 131 newborns and their mothers.
Researchers used frequency-following response (FFR) to measure neural encoding of speech sounds.
Findings emphasize the significance of prenatal language exposure on early auditory development.