There have been a lot of theories surrounding babies’ early language development and why some children seem much quicker to pick up words than others. Much has crystallized into this prevailing advice: The more you talk to your baby, the more words she hears, and the more words she will eventually know. In other words, lots of language input will equal lots of language output.
But this simple equation doesn’t tell the whole story, the authors of “NurtureShock” say. After all, two children raised in similarly verbal households can pick up words at very different speeds. So what gives?
New research suggests that parents miss the boat when they constantly babble at their children. Equally crucial is listening to what even a very young baby is saying or doing, and then responding. A New York University laboratory study of similarly well-off families focused on how well mothers responded to their infants’ vocalizations. Then the infants were then tracked according to what new words they acquired over time. Some babies seemed to acquire words a lot faster than others. But why?
The variable that best explained these gaps was how often a mom rapidly responded to her child’s vocalizations and explorations. The toddlers of high-responders were a whopping six months ahead of the toddlers of low-responders. … All of the infants heard lots of language. How often a mother initiated a conversation with her child was not predictive of language outcomes—what mattered was, if the infant initiated, whether the mom responded.
Dr. Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, one of the lead researchers, attributes this two a couple of factors: Babies learn that vocalizing prompts their parents to respond, which spurs them to do it more. Also, parents who are quicker to label objects (as a baby is grabbing the object, for instance) better cement that association for their child.
Michael Goldstein of Cornell University observed moms and babies interact in another laboratory experiment. This time, the mom was directed to touch, pat, or show some sort of physical affection immediately after her baby vocalized. When doing so, the baby vocalized an average of 55 times, compared to 25 when the mother was not instructed to respond in such a way.
It all seems quite simple, then: Let your baby take the lead, but respond quickly. Researchers do offer cautionary notes, though. Overstimulation isn’t the goal — babies do need substantial time when they can play by themselves. Second, take your cues not from what you think your baby is saying, but what he or she is actually observing:
The baby, holding a spoon, might say “buh, buh,” and the zealous parent thinks, “He just said ‘bottle,’ he wants his bottle,” and echoes to the child, “Bottle? You want your bottle?” … Inadvertently, the parent just crisscrossed the baby, teaching him that a spoon is called “bottle.” … Pretending the infant is saying words, when he can’t yet, can really cause problems.
The authors cover some other techniques parents can use to bolster language development. They include the following:
- “Motionese.” Babies under 15 months benefit when parents shake or move an object as they label it.
- Multiple speakers. Babies may pick up a word faster if they hear it from a variety of people, rather than the same one over and over.
- Language frames. Babies tend to hear the last word in a sentence most clearly, so they are primed to learn those first. Saying something like, “Throw me the ball” or “Look at the sun” will teach “ball” and “sun” far faster than “throw” or “look.”
Parents’ ultimate takeaway, according to the authors, should be this: It’s possible to jump-start a child’s language development, but once kids are school-aged, differences tend to shrink considerably. Late talkers commonly catch up to their peers and show no ill effects from ever having been “behind,” especially if they have a large receptive vocabulary – that is, words they can understand, even though they can’t repeat them.
It’s important to characterize early language precocity for what it is: a head start, but far from a guarantee. “It’s not like the infancy period is the only critical period,” said Tamis-LeMonda. “New skills are emerging in every period, and vocabulary development has to continually expand.”
Will you try some of these techniques to help your infant’s language development? Do you have an early or late talker?
pomelo / 5178 posts
Very interesting post!
cherry / 187 posts
This is really interesting! We have an early talker so I wonder if we have done any of the things they say to do. I have no idea!
guest
This is great information. Our son was a late talker and by the age of 3 he qualified for speech therapy through our school district. We talked to him all the time and receptive speech was never an issue, but his pronunciation was such that only his dad, grandma and I could really understand what he was saying. Happily he took to therapy remarkably fast and he has caught up to his peers and then some.
However, we feel that our 18 mo daughter is off to a slow start as well and we’ve asked our speech therapist what we could do to help her speech develop. The therapist stressed talking to her lots and labeling as many things as we can, but hasn’t really emphasized listening and responding to her attempts. However it completely makes sense. She absolutely lights up when we praise her for trying to say a word. This is great information on how to expand on that!
honeydew / 7444 posts
Very interesting! Lately, LO has been saying “umma/mama” and i always respond as soon as she says it so that she makes the connection.
pomelo / 5628 posts
I love good research : ). This article actually makes me feel better because although I knew the importance of lots of language, spontaneously vocalizing all the time does not come that naturally to me. I do think I would be a quick responder though. Great things to think about!
grapefruit / 4671 posts
Great article. LO is an early talker so it is good to know how to approach things.
pea / 12 posts
I wonder if the same stands for bilingual children. We are planning to have our kid speak and understand both languages but from what I understand this can result in a delay in initial speech.
blogger / nectarine / 2010 posts
Interesting article. This is essentially what we’ve been doing with Little M and his pediatrician says he has more words than an average 13m old. I wonder if that’s why or if we just happen say a dozen of the same words all the time here.
guest
really interesting post! my boy is only 8 months, so this is helpful to know as he moves from babbling dadadadada to plain old “dada” or “spoon”.
thanks!
guest
p.s. this definitely made me want to check out the book. so good.