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Young infants between 6 months and 9 months already know many common words, according to a new study.

It was widely accepted that while able to perceive and understand elements of the sounds of their native language, infants didn't yet have word comprehension until they get closer to one year old.

However, University of Pennsylvania psychologists  Elika Bergelson and Daniel Swingley demonstrated that this consensus about the developmental sequence of human language learning is flawed: in fact, infants already know the meanings of many common words from the age of 6 months onward.

Bergelson and Swingley presented 6-to 9-month-old infants with sets of pictures while their caregiver named a picture in each set.  It was observed that over this entire age range, infants directed their gaze to the named pictures, indicating their understanding of spoken words.