Babbling Fingers

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Infants will often look ever so serious as they babble away, as if they're actually saying something of great importance. Most of us have assumed that they do this because they see others talking and they want to join in.

The clue to the fact that there is more to speech than simple imitations came when scientists discovered that infants can babble without ever making a sound. Researchers studied five infants, two of whom were deaf and had deaf parents. In the deaf households, communication took place through American Sign Language.

Scientists found that both hearing and deaf children babbled in the language used in their homes. Hearing infants produced sounds, then syllables, and eventually meaningful words. The deaf infants did the same with their hands. At first they would make the hand signs for basic letters and numbers, stringing them together without meaning. Just as the hearing infants were beginning to offer meaningful communication by their first birthday, the deaf infants' signing had reached the same point by their first birthday.

Researchers were shocked when they realized what this means. It means that the brain has some type of unified ability built into it for learning language. This conclusion goes against everything evolution says about who and what humans are. However, it fits perfectly with the Bible when it tells us that men and women were made for fellowship and communication with their Creator.