What language do babies think in?

Question

I think in English and a Spanish person thinks in Spanish, but what language would an 0-1 year old infant think in?!

Answer 1

This is a hard question to answer, but I think at a very young age, infants act in a 'stimulus-response' fashion. There have been several studies done on children who were abused (for example) and never learned language. These individuals have difficultly learning and understanding because without language we cannot organize thoughts into a way we can learn from; the thoughts are scattered and disorganized. Even animals communicate so using them as a comparison isn't even good. An amoeba or other unicellular organism is an example of something that give direct reaction to stimulus. I think in an infants extreme early years their thoughts could be compared to this; to a stimulus-response model. But babies learn very quickly and probably have their own way to arrange thoughts into their head as they develop schemas for objects in the environment around them. Eventually they learn words to associate to the objects within each schema and to alter their schema to include other various things.

Answer 2

None. Infants do not think in any cultural language - as thinking requires the ability to speak and understand. The ability to speak or understand language is a gradual process that comes into play once the child's brain is mature enough - signs of this occur in infants 1yr old after a period of exposure to social interaction (mainly with the primary caregiver).

All children inherit the ability to speak, however, the child's brain's development requires time - the parts of the brain associated with language and thinking are the temporal and frontal lobes - these regions of the brain continue to develop after children first begin to speak at around the age of 1. This indicates children are not born with speech - speech is a cultural thing, not a biological thing. We learn language by those who teach us language, we are not born with any perception of what language is. Thus, we do not think in any given language but we may understand simple things about the world.

If a child were born with the ability to speak and think, the brain would be larger and children would speak at a younger age - consequently, the cranium or skull of the child would be large too, and would not be able to fit through the birth canal at labor (resulting in death of the infant, and great pain to the mother). The child simply could not be born naturally!

In addition to this, an infant can be raised through any environment – given that language is present. There is a specific time frame for children to acquire this – after a certain age, language cannot be taught or becomes very difficult to teach. This is the case when it comes to feral children and those children who are abused/locked away and deprived of any social interaction (for years). It is important to note that infants interact through basic behaviors – crying, laughing and smiling being some of the primary actions observed. Advanced thinking - such as perception of self doesn't appear til age 3-4 in most children.

Infants do have some perception of the world around them - according to studies conducted by Developmental and Social Psychology, infants do have some basic concepts of the world at a very young age. At most, they simply see the world around them and react to stimuli however their behavior indicates little thought issued prior to the actions they make.

Answer 3

jiberish

Answer 4

I don't think they would think in a specific language, but in pictures, sounds, and feelings.  

Answer 5

thought can exist without language so in the very early stages, their thoughts are purely abnstract an conceptual. perfect and free from the subjectivity of language-------------------pure

Answer 6

gibberish!

kidding, I have a baby sister, and I notice that she tends to say(or try to say) the last sound that she hears us say. like if I say "come here!", she'll yell "iii-er! ii-er!"

Answer 7

What a GOOD question!!

I think they think in language of unconditional love and expressions.

Answer 8

probably no language, i mean, if you think something, you don't think it in english, the only reason you think about something in english is because you're thinking about thinking. to put it another way, most of what they do is instinct more than a process, so they don't think about what they're thinking before they do something.