Leave it to scientists and medical doctors trained to perform circumcisions to be the last to recognize babies are aware and capable of learning early on; but no surprise to see what they do with that information, such as in the following study:


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,203393,00.html


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Of course, the idea here is that reading to infants gets the mothers more involved, but then such motivation begs the question: why replace non-verbal communication early-on, especially when face to face interaction, holding and carrying, are so important. I'm afraid the mothers who take to such advice, i.e, reading to their infants, are probably more likely to be insecurely attached to their babies, as a mother empathetically attuned would be responding moreso to the child's readiness and non-verbal relational skills rather than mere brain plasticity that can be manipulated to suit her own adult skills.

Raising the intelligence quotient of infants, rather than understanding and supporting their emotional intelligence as the basis for the former, gets completely lost in this study.