Babies are born ready to be social, to start early communication from day one. Research into how babies' brains develop has found that the part of their brain that deals with hearing has been working before birth.
So parents who say that their newborns seem to recognise particular songs or pieces of music are not fooling themselves. A very young baby probably does recognise the nursery rhyme she frequently heard from inside the womb when it was a favourite of her toddler brother.
0-12 months
Babies are responsive to words and facial expressions that are more exaggerated than those we use in ordinary conversation. They benefit from the rhythmic nature of what is called infant-directed speech: words and phrases that are said with plenty of expression and have a repetitive, circling quality, as well as pauses for babies to 'reply' with sounds and gestures of their own.
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