With focus on the first critical period of development – before age 1- when babies start learning the sounds of their language, Kuhl’s work plays a major role in demonstrating how early exposure to language alters the brain, and what effects this then can have on bilingualism, learning to read and other critical elements of development.In her team’s research, they have found that babies all over the world are “citizens of the world,” as she refers, wherein they can absorb all the sounds of all languages. As adults, we are not able to do this so easily or as well because we are bound to the language of our culture. However, she said, it is by a baby’s first birthday that this cultural language binding begins.