Babies are more than just cute bundles of joy. There's more genius behind those googly eyes than you might think.
A baby's brain grows at an astonishing rate. The brain mass doubles within the first year of life and reaches its full size just four years later. To support the learning process in the growing brain, there are around 1000 trillion synapses, i.e. connections between the brain cells, which corresponds to around twice the number of synapses in adults.
It has long been known that it is easier to learn several languages at once as an infant. Even at the earliest age, a baby can recognise when a new language is being spoken by its rhythm and facial movements. A baby growing up bilingual retains the ability to learn and separate several languages more easily. The brain of bilingual babies remains more flexible towards other languages over a longer period of time.
Babies understand the feelings of other creatures, even those they don't know. A baby that has had no contact with dogs can still instinctively understand the emotions of a dog.
Long before a baby begins to form its first words, it can already understand the meaning of words. In a study of six to nine-month-old babies, they were shown pictures of body parts and food and asked to name each one. The babies looked at the correct picture when naming an object. Even if you think a baby is not listening or is just looking into space, it still picks up spoken words from its environment and learns to understand them.
Babies who are barely older than one year already have a sense of justice. At this age, you often see that they distribute objects or food equally among the people present and realise when someone has too much or too little.
An eight-month-old baby already distinguishes between good and bad behaviour. Accordingly, it already makes sure that bad behaviour is punished. Especially among siblings, you often see that the baby is happy when the older brother is punished for his bad behaviour.
It seems that babies like to take what they are given, but in fact most babies are happy when they can offer something to someone else and that person accepts it. This behaviour suggests that the ability to feel pleasure through giving and helping is an innate part of human nature.
