I’ve always believed that babies catch onto things faster than a lot of people give them credit. That’s one reason I’ve never used “baby talk” with my kids, and discourage my 5-year-old from talking like that to my 5-month-old. “Just talk to her like a regular person,” I tell her. “That’s how the baby learns our language, from how you speak.” We all take pride in seeing our babies grow and develop. I think babies are like sponges, soaking in everything around them, so the more I can facilitate that learning experience, the better. That’s why I was interested to read about a new study that says babies might comprehend words and their meaning sooner than expected. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “had 33 babies between 6 and 9 months old view a screen with a picture of a food and a body part while sitting with their parents. The parents were given phrases to say to the child, asking them to find the apple, for instance. An eye-tracking device revealed the babies' responses to the phrases. In a second test, the children went through the same process but saw pictures of typical food scenes and a whole person, not just body parts.” Researchers compared the responses of this age group with older babies. In both situations, the babies seemed to look at the image of the word being spoken more than any other. The researchers determined that this was a sign of word comprehension. Most psychologists believe that this type of understanding doesn’t develop until closer to one year of age, which is why these results might be surprising. What’s also interesting is that the babies seemed to recognize categories of words. For example, they could look at the image of the word “apple”, even if the picture of the apple was different (color, background, etc.) That implies a greater understanding of the meaning of some words. “The study's authors said babies at 8 and 9 months performed no better than 6- and 7-month-old infants. They said no significant improvement was seen until the children reached about 14 months of age. They could not explain exactly why performance did not improve for so long.” I don’t think this study means that babies are secretly geniuses (although we all think our children are brilliant, right?) who have an extensive understanding of language and meaning. But as I said before, I think babies understand and pick up on a lot of things from a very early age. That’s why I think it’s never too early to talk to your baby (even if it’s just telling them what you’re doing as they watch you cook dinner) and read to them regularly. My daughter would rather chew on a book at this point than read it, but that’s okay for now. What do you think?  You will earn 5 SparkPoints
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I also talk to my children and granddaughter explaining what I'm doing. What we are seeing. I've always sang to my children. I love using sign language with my granddaughter. All my children are smart. So is my granddaughter. Report
[Warning: here begins a nerdy lecture for anyone interested in a little anthropological trivia.]
"Baby talk," however, definitely does have a place in child language learning. It's not like it will hurt a child to never hear baby talk, but I second what BEECHNUT said about it attracting children's attention. I would add that in my studies (I have a graduate degree in anthropology, which includes cognitive and linguistic studies), I've always learned that "infant-directed speech" occurs in every society worldwide and there are certain characteristics that remain constant in each society, which indicates that these characteristics serve some kind of purpose (otherwise, why would all human populations share them?). For one thing, pitch is always exaggerated, even in tonal languages like Mandarin where differences in pitch actually affect meaning. Chinese adults still do it when speaking to babies. This is thought to help infants learn appropriate pitch contours in speech (you notice that no one ever speaks in a monotone because pitch contours provide linguistic cues - for example, in English the pitch rises at the end of a question). This happens with pet-directed speech as well, and of course animals are not going to learn how to speak, but pet-directed speech does differ from IDS in an interesting way: in IDS, the vowel sounds adults make are elongated when speaking to infants. People don't seem to do this with animals because it doesn't matter for them, but people automatically draw out their words as they speak to children and babies, suggesting that there is a specific innate purpose in doing so. This purpose is believed to be that elongating the vowels helps emphasize/demonstrate the sounds a child will need to learn to produce in order to speak his/her language.
So for those who do engage in baby talk, don't feel bad. It seems to be a very natural part of human cognitive behavior and development and it does actually serve a purpose. :)
[End nerdy lecture. Sorry, I just think it's fascinating!] Report
I have never been trained in child development/psychology, but I used my gut and instincts, not following the recommended Dr Spock garbage (or any of the other similar books out about 32-35 yrs ago). Reading them, I just felt they were off track, and not for us.
Thank God I was right (for us)! I am proud to say my sons, now 32 and 31, excelled in school -- not meaning to brag, but hard not to? -- huge vocabularies, great grammar and quickly learned Spanish (I spoke Spanish a bit with them when they were growing up, as young as toddlers [I am not Hispanic, by the way, but felt it was an advantage as we were in So Calif at that time] -- and it has helped them all along the way, even at work now).
That said, my daughter-in-law used sign language with our 2 grandkids, and BOY does that help the little one communicate. So much less frustration when trying to "tell" their parents what they want or need!
Thank God the "authorities" are finally recognising that babies DO understand! I was not a freako who gave them credit for more than they deserved -- they DID understand me.. way before they could talk! Report
One word on "baby talk" - it used to be called "motherese" and then "parentese" because Dad's use it too... but now psychologists call it "child-directed speech." And although it is annoying to hear, and shocking to hear yourself use, the higher pitch, focus on intonation, and accentuation of words actually does grab the baby's attention. Not to say someone who says "googoo gah gah" is doing a good job... but saying real words in child-directed speech in order to keep baby's attention is something worthwhile. Report
Well, now that my kids are 7 and 5, they are both very different. My daughter is my kind hearted soul who is struggling big time now with reading and languages. Her strengths lie more with humanitarianism and being a patient, kind helper. My son is now my little book worm, writing full sentences as a preschooler. He's also my fiery little guy who's not quite as nice as his sister. So, kids grow & change & go through all kinds of stages. I think it's true that babies do the same thing. If we were all the same all the time...that would be pretty boring! Little humans are just as dynamic & complex as us grown ups. :)
Great article to bring light to all this! Report
MSPOOH404's comment on what her child said about Santa made me laugh. Report
I don't really recall much of his early speech patterns. I do believe he was able to speak in full sentences at an early age. I'll never forget when he went to preschool and told some of the children, "Actually, Santa Claus is a fictional character." I had a LOT of parents mad at me! LOL! Report