Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1996

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Teresa Hutchens

Committee Members

Melisssa Groves, John Peters, Bill Poppen

Abstract

Most research done on the postnatal effects of externally-presented, prenatal auditory stimulation has been conducted with music, heart rhythms, and language sounds such as voices and songs. The literature is absent in an exploration of the discrimination of foreign language phonemes presented prenatally. The present study was conducted to determine whether newborns could differentiate language sounds heard prenatally from phonemes not previously heard. Twelve fetuses from exclusively English speaking families were exposed to either English language sounds (control group) or Japanese language sounds (experimental group) for 10 minutes each day during the last 2 weeks before their expected delivery date. Three days after birth these infants’ heartrates, movements, and states were measured while they were being auditorially stimulated with English and Japanese language sounds to determine their discrimination of the language sounds to which they were exposed in utero. Although not significant at the p <.05 level, the group differences were all in the expected direction. Analysis of covariance revealed some variances but not enough to bring statistical significance. Group differences may exist, but were unable to be detected due to small sample size. These results, while not significant, show a trend consistent with evidence that suggests that the human fetus is capable of hearing language sounds in utero and recalling those familiar sounds three days after birth. A path analysis was conducted to determine at what point infants completed the initial orienting response characterized by accelerated heartrates and movements and began to habituate to familiar sounds. These results were also not found to be statistically significant. Although, a consistent pattern of greater heartrate and movement readings during the first 30 seconds of simulation than in the second and third 30 second periods appeared. This trend supports the literature which indicates that 30 seconds is long enough to allow for the initial orienting response to wane and begin reliable recordings of infant heartrate and movement.

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