Neuroscience is finally moving in on a complete picture of how and why BabyPlus offers an appropriate developmental experience for nourishing the lifetime cognitive and therefore, the behavioral resources that an increasingly challenged world requires.
Here are a few examples of how research continues to unveil and reinforce the potential of prenatal learning:
The Benefits of Reading to Your Baby in the Womb
“You may think the only benefits of reading to your unborn baby are the relaxation and bonding you feel. But science shows that reading to baby in the womb helps develop early language learning.
In small children, reading is proven to help with language development and increased word recognition. Reading can also create a positive bond between parent and child. It can provide a great wind-down before bedtime and spark an early interest in learning.
Maybe talking, singing, or playing music to a baby while in the womb comes naturally to many expecting couples. There’s much to be said for reading to a child in utero. There are numerous advantages—both for baby and the parents.”
Full article: greenchildmagazine.com
How Your Baby Learns Language
in the Womb
“Did you know that babies begin learning in the womb? Before she is even born, your baby has already been exposed to many opportunities for language learning while in utero.”
Language learning begins in the womb
“A study by Dr. Patricia Kuhl, Ph.D., stated that babies not only hear their mother’s voice and understand their mother’s inflection, but they are also already learning her language in the womb. This is the foundation for language. In fact, just hours after your baby is born, she can distinguish between your native tongue and the foreign language of another mother.”
Full article: HUFFPOST
BBC – Earth, July 6, 2016, “Babies Start Learning Before They Are Even Born”
Full article: bbc.com
MedicalXpress, July 8, 2015, “Research Provides Evidence Of Learning And Memory Six Weeks Prior To Birth” By Bobbie Mixon – Excerpts:
“Research on early developmental exposure to sound suggests babies begin to acquire knowledge in the womb by their 34th week in utero, three weeks earlier than previous research had shown.
Research led by Charlene Krueger, an associate professor at the University of Florida’s College of Nursing, and published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development, provides evidence that what fetuses hear by their 34th week in utero can inspire learning. That’s three weeks earlier than than the evidence of learning detected by previous research.
By the 38th week of pregnancy, memory is evident; births normally occur around 40 weeks…”
“…Lab testing involved measuring the fetuses’ heart rates while the unborn babies listened to a recorded female voice repeat the same nursery rhyme that was spoken at home by the mothers…
“…Krueger and Garvan concluded that the fetuses in the experimental group were responding to the nursery rhyme; that they begin to show evidence of learning by 34 weeks gestational age; and that they are capable of remembering what they hear inside the womb.”
Full article: medicalxpress.com
Additional Reading:
“Emergence and retention of learning in early fetal development” Infant Behavior and Development: Volume 37, Issue 2, May 2014, Pages 162–173, Charlene Krueger and Cynthia Garvan
Scientific American, Jun 16, 2015, “Study Of Fetal Perception Takes Off” By Ferris Jabr – Excerpt
“Newborns are hardly blank slates devoid of knowledge and experience, contrary to historical notions about the infant mind. Sensory awareness and learning start in the womb, as the recently reinvigorated study of fetal perception has made clearer than ever. In the past few years lifelike images and videos created by 3-D and 4-D ultrasound have divulged much more about physiology and behavior than the blurry 2-D silhouettes of typical ultrasound. And noninvasive devices can now measure electrical activity in the developing brain of a fetus or newborn. Recent insights gleaned from such tools provide a rich portrait of how a fetus uses its budding brain and senses to learn about itself and the outside world well before birth. Such research has improved care for preterm babies, suggesting the benefits of dim lights, familiar and quiet voices, and lots of comforting skin contact between mother and child.”
full article: scientificamerican.com
Science News, July 15, 2015, “How The Brain Perceives Time” By Laura Sanders – Excerpt:
“Nerve cells removed from a rat’s cortex, the brain’s outer layer, will respond in complex ways to the tempo of music, neuroscientist Antonius VanDongen of Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore and colleagues have found. After genetically engineering a network of nerve cells to respond to blue light, the team regaled the cells with ‘music’ — carefully timed patterns of light based on the rhythm and notes of songs. Upon “hearing” the songs, the cells’ electrical reactions could usually determine whether ragtime or classical music was playing at any given moment. And the cells got better as the seconds ticked by, hinting that they could hold a memory of the tempo information for about six seconds. Those results show that time processing is fundamental in the brain, says VanDongen. ‘This is a very basic thing,’ he says. A small group of neurons is the building block that may enable more sophisticated time processing.”
Full article: sciencenews.org
New York Times, February 23, 2015, “Mothers’ Sounds Are Building Block For Babies’ Brains” By Douglas Quenqua – Excerpt:
“The sound of a mother’s voice plays a critical role in a baby’s early development, multiple studies have shown. Now, researchers have demonstrated that the brain itself may rely on a mother’s voice and heartbeat to grow.”
full article: well.blogs.nytimes.com
February 2015
Science Magazine, “Sound of mom’s voice boosts brain growth in premature babies.” The mother’s voice and duplications of the sounds of the womb environment are cited as positives for the development of preemies.
January 2015
PNAS-Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Mother’s voice and heartbeat sounds elicit auditory plasticity in the human brain before full gestation.”
November 2013
NY Daily News, “Music Training Strengthens a Child’s Brain for a Lifetime ”
August 2013
“Unborn Babies are Hearing You, Loud and Clear” – NBC News
Science Magazine, Babies Learn to Recognize Words in the Womb” by Beth Skwarecki
January 2013
WebMD Health News, “Babies Listen and Learn While in the Womb” by Denise Mann
June 2012
Harvard University focuses on Brain Development and Architecture from Conception On. Connections Made and Used Frequently Grow Stronger while other less used connections fall away.
developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/brain-architecture
September 2012
Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine, “Exposure to Biological Maternal Sounds Improves Cardiorespiratory Regulation in Extremely Preterm Infants”
February 2009
Penn State /News, Rick O. Gilmore, PhD writes article titled “Probing Question: Can Babies Learn in utero?” His answer is “Absolutely.” David B. Chamberlain Birth Psychology Prenatal Stimulation and Experimental Results Prenatal Memory & Learning
March 2009
“Brain Images Revel the Secret to higher IQ” – MIT Technology Review
2006
November 11th, Hong Kong proclaimed the worlds first PRENATAL EDUCATION DAY honoring the progressive nature of the BabyPlus Prenatal Education method!
2005
Experimental Neurology “deficient environment”in prenatal life may compromise systemsimportant for cognitive function by affecting BDNF in the hippocampus”
2003
Publication of the first comprehensive resource on prenatal sound enrichment-Learning Before Birth: Every Child Deserves Giftedness
September 1994
Archives of Disease in Childhood “Development of Fetal Hearing” by Peter G Hepper
1990s
Numerous studies link the earliest sonic influences to youth and adult proficiency; Brent Logan designs a second-generation prenatal auditory player, trade named BabyPlus, with extensive donations of units to developing countries, resulting in benefits for tens of thousands of children from every socioeconomic background.
1989 – 90
Commercialization of fetal enrichment technology created by Brent Logan commences, with 3000 children advantaged.
1987 – 88
The first babies prenatally experiencing an imprintable sonic progression under Brent Logan’s projects are born; he begins a series of related articles in academic journals.
1986
Brent Logan presents prelearning theory before professional congresses, then inaugurates in utero pilot studies to verify his contention; Rene Van de Carr publishes the first clinical evidence showing neonatal and infant assets from prenatal stimulation.
1984
Upon learning from his patients about fetal responsiveness to abdominal touch, California obstetrician Rene Van de Carr, MD, develops a stimulation methodology of tactile manipulations paired with words describing these actions.
1982
Media reports about Americans Joseph and Jitsuko Susedik having enriched their four daughters before birth and throughout childhood during the prior decade with mixed means, all girls demonstrating giftedness; Brent Logan proposes curricularized variations of maternal in utero heartbeat sounds as an auditory curriculum. This initiates comprehensive theoretical research, and he invents the earliest prenatal learning technology.
1981
In The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, Toronto psychiatrist Thomas Verny and co-writer John Kelly compile anecdotes of assorted fetal effects upon later life
1980s
Anthony DeCasper, a University of North Carolina psychologist, determines that newborns exhibit preference for speech patterns heard before birth, favoring the maternal voice. At the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, Donald Shetler has pregnant students provide recorded classical music to the womb through adjacent headsets, with their children exhibiting early musical skills.
1980
Introduction of the portable audiocassette player, the Sony Walkman. Parents worldwide begin applying headphones to the maternal abdomen, producing fetal movement and claims for infant benefits.
1971
Prenatal psychology commences as a scientific discipline with the Vienna founding of its first professional organization, another group beginning in Toronto a decade after.
1970s – 80s
Technology provides more accurate monitoring of gestational processes, including photographic images which enhance public perceptions of the unborn child.
1962
Ashley Montagu’s Prenatal Influences summarizes the expanding information about fetal life.
1960s
New York psychologist, Lee Salk, conducts several investigations of prenatal imprinting from the mother’s blood surging past the placenta, identifying various permanent behavioral indicators; neuroanatomist Marian Diamond at the University of California, Berkeley, begins three decades of research which show stimulating maternal environments alter brain physiology in rat offspring, and improve their learning skills.
1920s – 1950s
Increasing evidence of second-trimester audition and multisensory fetal reaction to the maternal environment, with in utero learning suggested by psychologist David Spelt; psychologist Donald Hebb, McGill University, Montreal, posits a neurogenetic hypothesis that early enrichment produces physiological changes in the brain which promote reasoning abilities.
1924
Albrecht Peiper, Leipzig University pediatrician, visually confirms prenatal response to outside stimuli by observing distension from kicking in the maternal abdomen after an automobile horn is sounded.
1890
As the Quing dynasty of China was forming a republic, the civic expectations for progeny further standardized ancient in utero stimulation techniques, centering upon utopian aims.
1881
William Preyer, in The Mind of the Child, discovers cerebral functions are initiated before birth.
1690
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, by the British philosopher, John Locke, contains the presumption that a fetus is capable of thought, and its ideas can be specifically influenced from outside the womb.
C. 1000
Japan adapts Chinese prebirth arts to its society, institutionalizing stimulation as taikyo; over time, this focus shifts from superstitious precautions to a theistic and then imperial rationale, by the 20th century amalgamated with an overtly educational approach.
C. 600
Talmudic writings reference fetal awareness.
C. 400
The surgeon Susruta of India believed the unborn child begins seeking sensation late in the first trimester, its mind at work by five months.
C. 350 BCE
Prenatal receptivity to external factors surmised by Aristotle.
C. 400 BCE
Plato asserts that vibration is the primary cosmic principle.
C. 450 BCE
Chinese culture formalizes special childbearing treatment, thereby acknowledging health, dietary, emotional, and stimulatory effects–including music–upon the fetus.
C. 500 BCE
Confucius suggests that the fetal environment can determine behavior.
Prehistory
Gestation rituals included dancing to instrumental music; still observed in Polynesian, African, and Asian tribal practices involving the pregnant mother.