In the
article I read it discusses the relationship between learning to talk and the
ROBO2 gene. The gene is located on chromosome 3, which is also related to dyslexia and some speech related disorders. This gene codes for the ROBO2 protein, which helps direct chemicals to brain and other neuronal cells. These cell formations help to develop language and produce sounds. The researchers who were apart of this project found the link between the ages of 15-18 months. At this time the toddlers know about 200 words but are not yet speaking in phrases. Finding this discovery made sense of infants who had no other health issues, but were falling behind with learning to communicate.
Personally, I think this discovery is great because there is many infants who do not learn to talk or communicate at an average pace. There seemed to be, up until now no explanation as to why a perfectly healthy infant with no other apparent problems would not be able to talk. This discovery may not be as important as a lot of other things, but people with a child who seemed to be delayed with communication now have some answers to questions they may have had. I think any discovery big or small, is a great one!
I've always wonder if a possible reason for speech related disorders could be due to the type of food the baby was given. It's because this is a huge problem in China where babies are being fed baby formula that has a high percentage of mercury.
ReplyDeleteI would of never thought genes influenced the pace an infant learned to speak. I always thought it was the way they were being raised and parented. This makes me wonder if parents can sequence their own genes ahead of time to find out the chances of their offspring having a language/speaking issue. I believe this discovery is a stepping stone to answering questions to bigger speaking disorders, or possibly finding a way to aid infants with learning how to speak at a normal pace. This discovery will probably take a lot of weight of off the shoulders of parent's who believed they were the reason their child was communicating at a slow pace.
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