The finding could suggest that babies with better memory and motor skills may advance faster in their verbal abilities, but it isn't clear if that is based on genetic or environmental factors, Dr. Kuhl says.
This is done by examining the combined concentration of gray and white matter, or nerve cells and fiber tracts, in parts of the brain not normally used for verbal processing the hippocampus and cerebellum, normally associated with memory and motor learning.
He teamed up with Carnegie Mellon economist George Loewenstein and others to test 87 residents of a poor village in India on a variety of tasks involving memory, fine motor skills and creativity.