Infants and Toddlers Are Smarter Than They Sound!

Babies are gentle and small. They are also intelligent, even though they have been on the planet for far less time than most of us. Toddlers possess an inherent intelligence, as well. If you’ve always wondered about the intelligence of babies and toddlers, you might be surprised to find out that they have many linguistic and cognitive experiences happening inside them, even at a very young age.

Many adults are surprised to find out that babies and toddlers have intelligence that we can’t comprehend as adults. For example, we often associate intelligence with being able to express a problem and then work to find creative solutions for it. We also associate speaking and writing with intelligence. Yet babies and toddlers have intelligence that is simply preverbal and expressed in a multitude of other ways.

Babies attune to speech before they are even born. For example, research has proven that a fetus can respond to its mother’s verbalizations. If you look closely, you might see a fetus open his or her mouth slightly when his or her mother sings a nursery rhyme, for example. This has been witnessed at approximately 25 weeks after conception.

Soon after birth, thought and language begin to coalesce. Babies enjoy hearing human voices and they are known to become mentally stimulated after hearing them. Linguists link this connection to a form of categorizing. Babies, just like adults, begin perceiving their worlds in a particular, structured way.

As these babies turn into toddlers, they continue this identifying process by classifying objects into groups. Developmental strides are being created all the time, and with just a little observation, you can start to realize the brilliance that is actually occurring at even a young age. You might hear a young toddler at the zoo making sounds and pointing at an animal. Chances are he or she doesn’t say the animal’s name correctly if spoken. This doesn’t mean that the child doesn’t know what kind of animal it is. It actually means that he or she is gathering the correct information to be able to say the correct name in the future.