Rhythms (in utero)

A fetus, as has been well documented, is quite capable of gleaning many things for their world. Their world however is rather limited in scope. Where are the patterns? The mother moves through the world in rhythmic ways. Her heart beats in regular thump-thumps. When she speaks or sings, the fetus can feel the vibrations. (See Mehler & Dupoux, What Infants Know, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994, for more discussion.)

A mother is at a distinct advantage in the newborn's life, since nine months have prepared the child for recognizing and understanding her patterns. They can generalize these patterns as well. Studies have been done of a young child's ability to notice and respond to differences in rhythmic organization between their native language and one which does not share the same rhythmic structure. For instance, see Mehler, Jacques, Peter Jusczyk, Ghislaine Lambertz, Nilofar Halsted, Josiane Bertoncini, and Claudine Amiel-Tison. "A Precursor of Language Acquisition in Young Infants." Cognition 29 (1988): 143-78.

What more can we do as parents? When my wife was pregnant (when she was comfortable and obliging), I would gently tap rhythmic patterns on her belly. The procedure was similar to the one described below for syllables. tim-tim-tam tim-tim-tam tim-tim-tam tim-tim-tam ... tim-tim-tim-tam tim-tim-tim-tam tim-tim-tim-tam. For those of you literate in music notation, here is what it might look like.



Repeat the patterns. Then vary. Then return to the original, repeat, and vary. Try to keep it simple, especially at first. The point of this exercise is to help the fetus become aware of paying attention to a certain type of stimulus. A mother can also take advantage of the captive audience to begin a simplified version of the syllables exercise, bearing in mind that mostly what gets through is rhythmic information. However, rather than tapping on her belly, which may annoy her, she can simply intone these patterns with her voice. Or she can move rhythmically, which may have the added advantage of helping fit in some exercise: step-step-step-rest step-step-step-rest step-step-step-rest step-step-step-rest-step-rest step-step-step-rest-step-rest. Keep it simple, repeat, vary.