LAUSR

Human newborns can propel themselves to their mother's breast when positioned skin to skin on her abdomen just after birth. For decades, researchers have considered this primitive crawling behavior a spinal reflex, immune to supra spinal control. However recent research suggest that neonatal crawling is already responsive to visual and olfactory stimuli processed at a supra spinal level. Here we report that a few hours post birth, French newborns can also modulate their crawling in response to their native language - a source of information that is processed supra-spinally. The crawling patterns of 23 French-born newborns were recorded on video and via an infra-red motion capture system during two randomly ordered 2-minute trials. The newborns were secured on a mini skateboard to facilitate arm and leg movements during their crawling propulsion. They heard a repetitive sequence of the same sentences either in French, their native language, or in English, a rhythmically different and hence discriminable unfamiliar language, on each trial. In French, compared to English, crawling was enhanced, with significantly more arm and leg steps and significantly more and larger trunk rotations in the cephalo-caudal axis. Moreover, newborns rotated their head and trunk toward the appropriate loud speaker when hearing French but not English. These preliminary findings suggest that newborn crawling is not a simple stereotyped reflex under spinal control, but a complex pattern that can be modulated in response to higher-order, supra-spinally-processed stimuli. The findings open fascinating questions about the range of stimuli to which newborn crawling is responsive. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.