This is not related to human babies exactly, but is so adorable, I can’t resist sharing.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) is reporting that oddly enough, baby birds babble to their parents and to themselves just like human babies.
A new study shows that baby birds babbling is a process separate from learning to sing or speak (normal adult bird speak). In fact, the study shows that baby birds have hard wiring in their tiny brains that is set aside specifically for babble. The study looked at zebra finches. Adult finches tend to sing the same songs, in the same tone over and over, like a record, while babies babble randomly.
From the article, one of the researchers notes, “I think our experiments are really the first to look at this question of where the brain circuits are that generate early vocalization in young animals.” Maybe this will eventually lead us to understand if human babies constant babbling is a precursor to speech, or hard wired for another purpose.
