In 2021, researchers from Harvard University, Boston University, and Boston Children’s Hospital studied the connection between an infant’s brain structure and the child’s language and literacy skills later in life. To achieve this, researchers conducted brain scans of infants around ten months of age, then assessed the language and literacy skills of those same children when they entered school. Their findings demonstrated the earliest connection yet discovered between structures in the brain called “white matter” and subsequent language abilities. Those who are familiar with child development likely already know that infancy is a time of rapid brain growth, including in the area of early literacy and language acquisition; this study shows that the brain structures that influence later skills are already present as early as infancy. Fascinating!
Read more in this article here, which includes a link to the original study: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/06/tracing-roots-language-and-literacy