Newborns' language skills revealed
Chris Bunting
Monday, July 10, 2000
Research indicates that babies' apparently random wrigglings and blank stares are, in fact, part of a deliberate attempt to understand the world outside the womb and identify caring human beings within it.
The Social Baby, by Professor Lynne Murray and Liz Andrews, is the product of a year-long research project which photographically recorded the second-by-second development of babies from the moment they are born.
The book reveals that within a minute of being born, a baby can identify its mother. A minute later, it is straining to study her face and, within a quarter of an hour, it is intently inspecting its father's features and imitating him
