Shafaqna Science: A new study has found that the size of a language-related brain region before birth may predict how many words a child will be able to speak by the age of two to three, offering new insights into the origins of language development, according to PsyPost.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany analyzed fetal brain scans taken between the 30th and 33rd weeks of pregnancy as part of the Cambridge Human Imaging and Longitudinal Development (CHILD) project.
The study examined 41 fetal brain scans and later assessed the children’s language abilities at 18 months and again between 24 and 36 months of age. While no significant link was found at 18 months, researchers discovered that toddlers who had larger superior temporal gyri—a brain region involved in processing sounds and language—before birth tended to have significantly larger spoken vocabularies by age two to three.
The association was observed in both the left and right hemispheres of the brain, reflecting the broader neural networks young children use for early language processing. In contrast, the inferior frontal gyrus, a region linked to grammar and sentence structure, showed no significant connection to vocabulary size.
The findings, published in *Developmental Science*, suggest that brain structures supporting language development begin influencing communication skills long before birth. However, researchers caution that the study involved a relatively small sample and focused only on expressive vocabulary, highlighting the need for larger and more diverse studies to confirm the results.
Source: PsyPost
