Of all the senses, hearing is the first to develop. Long before clearly seeing a face, a baby hears, sorts, and memorizes sounds. Understanding this timeline changes how we talk to them and organize their sound environment.
An ear that functions before birth
The cochlea, the organ of hearing, becomes functional during the second trimester of pregnancy. The fetus then perceives low-frequency sounds transmitted through the mother's tissues.
They mainly hear rhythms: the heartbeat, breathing, and the prosody of their mother's voice. High-pitched sounds, meanwhile, are largely filtered by the fluid environment.
What the newborn already recognizes
At birth, the baby prefers their mother's voice to that of a stranger. They can also distinguish the melody of their native language from that of a foreign language.
This preference is not insignificant. It means that several weeks of auditory learning have already taken place before the first day of life.
Newborn hearing screening
In France, screening for permanent congenital hearing loss is offered in maternity wards. It is painless, takes a few minutes, and is most often performed while the baby is asleep.
The key stages from 0 to 3 years
Hearing is not simply about detecting sounds. The brain must learn to locate, separate, and interpret what it receives.
From birth to six months
Newborns startle at loud noises and calm down when they hear familiar voices. Around three to four months, they turn their head toward a sound source located to the side.
This localization requires comparing what each ear hears. It is a cortical calculation that the baby refines over several months.
From six months to one year
Babbling appears and becomes more structured. The baby repeats syllables, modulates their voice, and listens to themselves produce sounds.
At the same time, their ear specializes in the sounds of their language. They gradually become less sensitive to phonetic contrasts that are absent from their environment.
From one to three years
The child can now isolate a voice from background noise, but less effectively than an adult. A noisy environment therefore requires real listening effort.
How to support this development every day
The goal is not to provide more stimulation, but more appropriate stimulation. A busy sound environment tires attention rather than nourishing it.
Talk, sing, name
The human voice remains the best auditory material. Commenting on what you are doing, singing the same nursery rhymes, and naming objects builds the connection between sound and meaning.
This work directly prepares children for language development, which we discuss in detail in our article on language development from 0 to 3 years.
Lower the background noise
A television left on continuously masks voices and makes it harder to distinguish sounds. Turning off background noise during conversations remains one of the most effective steps.
Vary sound materials
Wood, fabric, and metal do not sound the same. A floor play area allows the child to produce these sounds themselves and observe their effects.
This is also one of the benefits of a floor activity mat: a stable surface where the child can tap, roll objects, and listen independently.
One sense among many
Hearing never works alone. It coordinates with vision and touch to build a coherent representation of the world.
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