system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are babies physically able to speak?

I was having a discussion with a friend, and the topic came up. We understand babies mentally lack the capacity to speak. But if they mentally could, would they be entirely capable of speaking? Have their vocal chords and other necessary parts fully developed to make the plethora of sounds necessary for speech?
gpt
Theoretically, yes. The PHYSICAL components of speech should be able to perform the actions necessary to produce the sounds, but it's the neuronal connections that actually matter. It's not even a matter of 'mental capacity' as it is strengthening and pruning synaptic connections in all the structures required for speech and associating them with the correct areas of higher processing. If, for example, you could exogenously stimulate the lungs, vocal folds, tongue, lips, etc in the correct sequences, the physical structures themselves could produce speech.