In part because of a landmark study by Hart and Risley from the 1980s, most parents know how important it is to talk to babies. What is less known is how to talk to babies to help them learn language skills. In this post, I will give tips to help your baby learn receptive language or understanding language.
When talking with a baby, use a higher-pitched, very friendly tone of voice called parentese; it’s used in many cultures and languages around the world. Parentese involves an exaggerated pronunciation of words in a “sing-song” voice, in which more emphasis is given to each syllable, making it longer and clearer than normal adult speech. Research shows that babies are better able to differentiate sounds in early months when spoken to in parentese rather than when spoken to in a typical adult voice. Many parents unconsciously use this higher-pitched, elongated form of speech, but many other parents do not.
Start off speaking to your baby in simple, descriptive language; I suggest describing all of the baby’s senses. Talk about what the baby is looking at, listening to, tasting, touching, or smelling. Think of movement as a sense and describe how your baby is moving, an activity best done in front of a mirror.
For example, if your newborn baby is looking at her arm, gently touch her arm and say something like, “Arm. This is your arm!” in parentese. At first, you’ll need to repeat the same few words many times for your baby to start understanding his or her first words.
Receptive language refers to the capacity for understanding language. The first fifty words take many months to learn. During these first months of your baby’s life, it’s very important to talk to him or her as much as you can in very simple language, using many of the same words over and over. However, once your baby understands the meanings of around 50 words, he or she will begin learning words at a much faster pace. Around that time, your baby will begin to go through a “fast mapping” stage, where children can remember words after hearing them only once or twice. During this time, it’s very important to use many new words when speaking to your baby. You can tell if your child is learning words quickly by asking questions. Younger babies generally answer the questions by looking. For example, you could teach your baby the name of a novel object (e.g., key fob). The following day you could ask your baby, “Where is the key fob?” — with three objects in front of the baby. The baby could answer by looking, pointing, reaching, signing, or talking.
I’ll go into more detail in the next post about the long-term benefits of talking to your baby, and I will give many more tips on what to say to your babies and toddlers.
Thanks very much for reading my blog and I look forward to sharing many more tips with you in the future.
Dr. Bob Titzer
Added. Nice work on this one. Btw, my blog is dofollow, stop by and grab a link. Bompa
Thank you for reading my blog!
Dr. Titzer
Great info – keep up the great work.
Thank you for reading the blog. I am very excited about the new products that will be launched in the coming months! We are also working to translate our videos into many languages. We will be releasing more Your Baby Can Learn! products that teach babies colors, shapes, numbers, patterns and music. And, we are working on a follow-up series to “Your Baby Can Read!” called “Your Child Can Read!” This will be the next step in our program for early reading.
Dr. Titzer
[...] expert and infant researcher, wrote an interesting post about this topic and the importance of speaking to children in “parentese,” which according to Dr. Titzer, “involves an exaggerated pronunciation of words in a [...]
This is very interesting and I’m glad you talked about it. For years I’ve heard my friends tease one another for speaking to their children in baby voices, especially when fathers do it, but now I understand the reasoning behind it.
- Kathlene
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Hi Kathleen,
I am glad the information is helpful. I hope many mothers and fathers will read the blog and feel completely comfortable using “parentese” with their babies! I want to make sure that everyone understands that this is not using “baby talk” with the child where you are making up nonsense words. This is an exaggerated pronunciation of words in a “sing-song” voice, in which more emphasis is given to each syllable, making it longer and clearer than normal adult speech.
Dr. Titzer
Dear Dr. Titzer,
We had used YBCR religiously for our three children. The results were amazing. My children has now progressed to books and they are in love with it!
Because of this inspiration, we had created a Learn Chinese DVD Flashcard program which we had painstakingly compiled 1200 awesome pictures and videos for non-Chinese speaking children to learning Chinese.
It would be a great honor if you are able to take a look at our website (i.e. http://www.WINKtoLEARN.com) and also the free lessons that we shared with viewers.
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Cheers!
Great content. I’ll keep coming back for similar posts which I cannot wait to read….
Thank you! We are working to add new posts soon.
Dr. Titzer