Let's Talk Baby Talk

Cecelia Ky-Lan Do
Jun 15, 2025
14 min read

by Karissa Song

art by Noelle Biehle

A year ago, the Four Seasons Orlando baby went viral. To those unfamiliar with the meme, it features one-year-old Kate Wise enthusiastically announcing “me!” when her mother asked the family, “Who’s excited to go to the Four Seasons Orlando?” As her last name would suggest, Wise’s linguistic abilities appeared wise beyond her years (or year—singular). In agreement, the commenters jumped in with witty replies, such as “Ahh, yes, Mother, I would be delighted” and “WHY IS IT SO CONSCIOUS?” One in particular caught my eye: a commenter remarked that it was “the most perfectly articulated ‘me’ I’ve ever heard.” Indeed, Wise’s language gave the impression that she was far more advanced than the typical “goo goo ga ga” expected of infants her age.

Not only was Wise’s viral moment endearing and amusing, but it also offered insight into how infants develop the ability to speak, a complex process called language acquisition. This is a popular topic in neurolinguistics, the field at the intersection of neuroscience and language. Because people rely on language everyday, understanding early language development is important for understanding cognition. Generally, the neuroscience of verbal communication can be broken down into three main components: auditory perception, language processing, and speech production. Auditory processing refers to the path sound takes to reach the brain, and how this information is perceived through our conscious experience. Language processing examines how the brain identifies and differentiates language while speech production involves motor processes that enable vocalization [1].

Auditory Perception

Auditory processing for Kate Wise begins in the ear. Sound waves travel through her ear canal and vibrate the tympanic membrane, also known as the eardrum. The resulting chain reaction of vibrations from the bones inside the ear to the cochlea amplifies sound [2]. The cochlea, a small snail-shaped organ, contains sensory receptor hair cells that convert ripples of the surrounding fluid, induced by the vibration of bones, into electrochemical signals. At the bottom of the hair cells, the basilar membrane moves with the cochlear ripples like a trampoline. Sounds of lower frequencies vibrate the apex of the basilar membrane, and sounds of higher frequencies vibrate the base. This phenomenon is called tonotopicity, where the location of the activated hair cells differentiates the perceived pitch of sound. After the neural signals pass through the thalamus, the brain’s sensory relay center, the information reaches the primary auditory cortex of the cerebral cortex for processing [1]. Organized contralaterally and bilaterally, each hemisphere of the auditory cortex receives information from both the contralateral (opposite side) cochlea and the ipsilateral (same side) cochlea [3].

Although the pathway for hearing remains the same from birth and throughout a person’s life, the structure of Wise’s ear still differs slightly from that of an adult because of the infant size of her ears and head. Most notably, her ear canal would only be around 15mm long at one month but grow to 24mm by adulthood, limiting her infantile hearing capability [4]. The eardrum and bones also continue to mature for many years after birth, influencing the way sound is processed and absorbed [5]. Additionally, the distance between the right and left ear causes them to receive auditory input from a single sound source at slightly different times, a phenomenon known as the interaural time difference (ITD), which helps localize a sound’s origin. Although it improves during the first six months of life, Wise’s ITD is less precise since infant head sizes increase substantially during the first few months after birth, causing her ITD cues to continuously recalibrate to the location of sounds [6].

The early postnatal months are crucial for newborns’ cortical development. At around three months of age, Wise’s auditory cortex achieves its maximum synaptic density, meaning the number of neural connections reaches an all-time high [2]. By that time, her auditory cortex also developed reactivity to pitch and envelope, a measurement of amplitude and how it fluctuates [7]. A study conducted in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in 2020 examined how listening to different speech and music impacted infants’ listening abilities [8]. Experimenters discovered that auditory experiences within the first few weeks of life substantially affect the development of the auditory cortices, with specific frequencies proving to be more beneficial than others [8].

However, research indicates that beyond processing auditory information postnatally, infants also begin to detect stimuli prenatally while in utero. While in gestation, the hair cells that respond to sounds reach adequate maturity during the third trimester, allowing for fetal movement in response to noise [5]. Additionally, evidence suggests that a fetus can distinguish their mother’s voice, likely based on pitch and rhythmic pattern, from the voice of others [2]. After hearing a particular language for nine months in the womb—typically the mother’s native dialect—newborns generally prefer the same language or others of similar rhythmic class [9].

Language Processing

After hearing her mother’s question, Kate Wise needs to process and understand it. This generally occurs in two dimensions: the message and their context, which includes the speaker's identity and location. In adults, this information travels along various neural pathways through the superior temporal lobe to the inferior frontal lobe, two cortical regions that respond to changes in voice and phonemes [10]. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound and include consonants and vowels. For example, the phonemes in “cat” are k/a/t [11]. Although her brain is significantly less developed as an infant, these speech processing patterns would have already become apparent in Wise at three months since she would activate the same brain regions as adults [10]. The ability to discriminate phonemes is also preliminarily present in fetuses in the womb as early as 26-34 weeks of gestation, in which they can identify some vowel sounds at high intensities. By 36-40 weeks of gestation, they differentiate vowel sounds and some consonant-vowel pairing sounds [12].

In processing language, Wise uses numerous brain regions. Most adults exhibit greater activity in the left hemisphere than the right for speech and language [13]. This difference, called hemispheric specialization, is also apparent in infants. In a 2016 study, researchers discovered that when newborns listened to a story in their parents’ native language, they demonstrated more activity in the left temporal lobe. On the other hand, when they listened to the same story in a completely different language, they demonstrated more activity in the right temporal lobe, which is also reflected in adult brains. This established that hemispheric specialization may be developed shortly after birth [14, 15]. However, the left hemisphere alone does not manage language skills; communication between both sides is crucial for advanced language abilities. A weak connection can actually lead to developmental delays, such as those demonstrated in children with autism [16].

In addition, visual cues aid in language processing. While adults integrate seen language with heard language, ten-week-old infants also demonstrate an elementary ability to associate audiovisual stimuli [9]. More recent evidence suggests this skill may be present at or a few hours after birth since newborns exhibit the same audiovisual connections [17]. In response to an auditory recording paired with two visual images of a person speaking, one that matches the speech and one that does not, the baby will frequently look towards the matching visual stimuli for a longer duration. This indicates that they can connect the audiovisual stimuli. Interestingly, because the left hemisphere plays a greater role in language processing and controls the right side of the body, infants perform better when the matching face is on the right side [9].

Speech Production

At birth, Wise could likely cry to demand attention, allowing her to communicate discomfort, hunger, or illness [18]. Over her first year, she would have hit several developmental milestones in communication abilities, leading up to her first word around age one [18, 19]. She should have begun to coo, squeal, or gurgle by three to four months. At six months, she might laugh aloud in response to being tickled or other stimuli [18]. In addition, at this age, she should have reached what is known as the babbling stage—this is where the “goo goo ga ga” comes in.

Canonical babbling is the preliminary stage of vocalization where infants produce syllables containing at least one consonant and one vowel, such as “goo” or “ga.” More advanced levels include reduplicated and variegated babbling, which refer to the repetition of syllabic sounds and the production of two different consonants back to back, respectively. Examples of reduplicated babbling are “goo’goo” or “ga’ga” since they demonstrate the ability to produce repeated consonant-vowel sounds; an example of variegated babbling is “ga’boo” since distinct consonants and vowels are paired together [20]. Babbling was a significant and crucial event in Wise’s speech development since producing canonical syllables precedes words and demonstrates that her oral-motor abilities have developed to produce adult sounds. In fact, not reaching this milestone can be worrisome for infants; delays may indicate speech or language-related disorders, including but not limited to autism spectrum disorder [21].

To produce voluntary speech, Wise engages in complex coordination from many muscles that control the movement of her tongue, mouth, vocal cords, and more. [1]. Her primary motor cortex, located in her frontal lobe, directs her body’s movement by communicating with spinal and cranial nerves that bypass the spinal cord, leading to voluntary muscle contraction [22]. Like how the hair cells in the ear are organized by pitch, different motor cortex sections control specific areas of the body and their corresponding muscles [23].

Language Acquisition

As previously mentioned, language acquisition is an incredibly complex topic. The development of auditory perception, language processing, and speech production often occur simultaneously, interacting in many ways. In addition, they are often impacted by further influences that lead to other linguistic phenomena.

For example, environment impacts language acquisition since children often emulate their surroundings during development. In their first few months or years, their speech predominantly reflects that of their caregivers. However, they can adapt quickly to a speaker’s accent by age two, regardless of familiarity [24]. In fact, sociolinguists have determined that toddlers and young children adopt a local non-native speaking style quicker and more effectively than adults after moving to a new city; this could be caused by the openness of the aforementioned critical period for auditory neuroplasticity or motivated by social factors like belonging [25].

In addition, this imitation and adaptability are supported by observational learning, the acquisition of new knowledge or skills through watching others perform them [26]. The discovery of mirror neurons furthers understanding of observational learning. In a famous study, Giacomo Rizzolatti et al. discovered that specific areas in the premotor area of monkeys activated both when the monkey produced specific movements and when watching others perform the same movements—neurons now known as mirror neurons [27]. Further research has determined that similar neurons exist in humans and other animals [28]. These mirror neurons may play a role in human speech perception and production since those areas respond during speech perception, which may provide an explanation for how infants learn the ability to produce speech. Additionally, individuals with higher speech mirroring also display better speech understanding. However, this conclusion needs to be supported by further research [29].

Nevertheless, observational learning can also lead to humorous incidents in childhood speech production—such as the show Bluey. Bluey is an Australian kids cartoon about a blue dog that debuted on North American streaming platforms in 2019. Since then, parents have reported that their non-Australian children have incorporated Australian lexicon or vocabulary and an Australian accent into their speech, such as using the word “brekky” in place of “breakfast” [30]. Although not at all concerning, it demonstrates how children quickly adapt to the language patterns they are exposed to.

Another instance of environmental factors shaping language acquisition is multilingualism. Not only can Kate Wise communicate in English, but she also speaks Spanish, as demonstrated in another video where she juggles learning vocabulary for both languages [31]. Being bilingual impacts how she acquires and processes speech. All babies are born with the ability to discriminate between infinite phonemes from any language in the world. By 12 months of age, monolinguals typically tune out nonnative sounds in order to focus on their native language in a process called perceptual narrowing. However, this process proves more complicated with bilingual infants, including Wise [32].

Some believe that because infants receive less exposure to either language, bilingualism causes a developmental delay in linguistic acquisition [32]. However, newer research suggests this is not the case. In a recent 2025 study, researchers found that there is no significant difference of when bilinguals reach important speech milestones, such as their first word, compared to monolinguals [33]. Additionally, bilingual children often retain more sensitivity to non-native phonemes because they take longer to narrow down their phoneme sets [34]. For example, a 2018 study demonstrated that bilingual 9-month-olds could distinguish changes in speakers of a foreign language that their monolingual counterparts could not [35]. Additionally, bilinguals show activation of the prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex, two areas involved in executive functioning. Compared to monolinguals, such activation may prolong the flexibility of speech structures and enhance other cognitive functions like conflict resolution or switching between tasks [36].

However, some influences may actually have a negative impact. For example, children born deaf may experience impaired language perception [9]. Individuals with congenital deafness, a type of hearing loss present from birth, are often limited in their speech abilities since they lack access to acoustic-phonetic cues. This ultimately hinders the development of language understanding and makes it difficult to decipher linguistic patterns [37]. However, cochlear implantation, a surgical operation designed to restore hearing by converting sound waves to electrical impulses, has proven to be highly successful in mitigating these effects by bypassing hair cells to directly stimulate the cochlear nerve [37, 38]. Its success is due to the neural mechanisms for processing speech—the brain uses top-down processing, filling in mental gaps by using existing knowledge to make sense of new information. The implant triggers electrical pulses on the cochlear nerve in response to auditory stimuli while the brain supplements the incomplete information. This process allows for remarkably accurate speech comprehension [39]. Thus, cochlear implants can help congenitally deaf infants mitigate many or even all language impairments when performed before the age of three, which is considered the developmental critical period for auditory neuroplasticity or the brain’s ability to adapt to or learn auditory responses [37].

Conclusion

Regardless of whether or not Kate Wise is the next “Boss Baby,” “she certainly is smart” as her mother Bailey Wise expressed in an interview with People magazine [40]. While some babies might not have the same clairvoyant look in their eyes, Wise exemplifies how infants and toddlers undergo incredibly rapid development within the first year or even the first few months of life, meeting several milestones in speech and language.

Ultimately, to be human is to communicate, and language acquisition is the first step to living—a baby step, pun intended. Shaped by environmental influences, it is a complex and fascinating process involving numerous neural correlates, such as the auditory cortex, left hemisphere, and frontal lobe, that allows us to form relationships and communities with others. Furthermore, understanding how a child’s language evolves is important to identifying speech disorders, such as developmental delays. Early intervention is crucial. As research deepens our knowledge of neurolinguistics, it continues to improve our quality of life and communication.

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