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Cool Article - Babies and Language

Emerald27Emerald27 member
in October 2014 Moms
Thought this was cool and wanted to share.

Study suggests that babies practice speech in their heads months before they begin to form words with their mouths. It highlights the importance of talking to our babies. :)

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5588626?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000037

Makes perfect sense...common sense...to me. More so than the idea of babies beginning to talk without any prior understanding of the words they are using, like a developmental switch that turns on or something.
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Re: Cool Article - Babies and Language

  • DaniGrace89DaniGrace89 member
    Love this.
    Language acquisition and language in general is always interesting to me.

    I find it most amazing that babies are born with the ability to produce every phoneme (word sound), but adapt to the language they will use and eventually lose the ability to create many of those sounds. This explains why it is so difficult to speak certain foreign languages without an accent.

    I've never really thought about speech being formed because of advanced motor planning. Cool article. Thanks for sharing.
    ~First time mama, strikingly handsome husband, comedic pooch, krumpin' baby girl on her way~

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  • SusieBWSusieBW member
    DD was exposed to a running commentary all the times when I was home on maternity leave with her.  Seriously, I talked to her constantly.  To me, there was another person in the house with me - it would've been rude to just ignore her!  But I have since heard all kinds of things about the value of talking to your baby - it helps with speech and vocabulary and syntax and reasoning and all of that.  It's really interesting to think about babies practicing words in their heads before they have the motor ability to actually form them, though. 

    DH saw one article that indicated that more educated parents tend to have kids whose speech develops earlier and faster than less educated parents - the reason being that 1) more educated parents tend to talk to their babies more, and 2) they tend to use a broader vocabulary and less baby-talk.

    Has anyone seen that Nova show about babies?  It's fascinating.  They do one experiment about basic math, and these tiny infants (6 months or so, I think) could recognize when stuff didn't add up.  They had a puppet stage with two puppets on it, and would close the curtain and show the baby two more puppets entering the stage from the side - when they opened the curtain and showed only 3 puppets, the babies were upset or looked confused.  If they opened the curtain to show all 4 puppets, they would smile.  They get it.  They are capable of so much more than we give them credit for.
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  • wildflower75wildflower75 member
    edited July 2014
    Thanks for sharing!!
    Very cool article!
    I only speak Spanish to my DD and DH and MIL only speak English to her.
    I will say that we started reading board books to my daughter when she was born and she's 16 months now and has about 80 words in her vocabulary and this week she started counting to 10 in Spanish!! There is definitely something to be said about that interaction/communication you have with your infant!! It excites me to think of all the things we can teach them!
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  • AppleGrapeMSTKAppleGrapeMSTK member
    I specialize in adult secondary language acquisition, so I'm totally a language freak.  I think it is so amazing how children can pick up on things!  I made a rule that there would be no baby talk, but it's so hard to get around at times.

    It amazes me the words DS uses when he doesn't know the real word.  Any cars with lights on top is a weeyoo because that's the sound a police siren makes; firetrucks, ambulances, police cars, and the occasional tow truck are all weeyoos.  Horses are yeehaws; stoves, ovens, and microwaves are all hots, and his blanket is a cold.  Most words we try to correct ("This is your blanket, not a cold."), but weeyoo and yeehaw is just too cute.
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  • Emerald27Emerald27 member
    I have also heard that parents' level of education can and often does impact baby's speech and language development. It really doesn't surprise me, considering that having a broader vocabulary would expose LO to a greater variety of sounds all the time, potentially making it easier to form the sounds themselves.  

    @AppleGrapeMSTK I was really bad about talking baby talk with DS. I talked to him ALL THE TIME but often in a different voice than normal and even more often in babbling and coos.  :\"> Despite this, he's managed to stay ahead of the curve in language. Maybe it's because DH doesn't do baby talk, so he cancels me out. lol 

    I'm also pretty bad about using the word DS assigns for things. I called water "wawa" for a while before training myself to say the right word and help him learn it. Now my issue is "nakie." He calls naked "nakie" and it's so darn cute, that it's just too easy for me to slip and ask him if he wants to stay nakie instead of wearing a diaper (we're potty training...see other thread). I say "carie" for car, and "weehoo" for emergency vehicles, like your LO...I know that I need to get better about speaking correctly around DS but it's very easy to start talking like the person you spend your whole day with. ;)
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  • SusieBWSusieBW member
    Emerald27 said:
    I'm also pretty bad about using the word DS assigns for things. I called water "wawa" for a while before training myself to say the right word and help him learn it. Now my issue is "nakie." He calls naked "nakie" and it's so darn cute, that it's just too easy for me to slip and ask him if he wants to stay nakie instead of wearing a diaper (we're potty training...see other thread). I say "carie" for car, and "weehoo" for emergency vehicles, like your LO...I know that I need to get better about speaking correctly around DS but it's very easy to start talking like the person you spend your whole day with. ;)
    I've always made a concerted effort to not use baby talk with any kids, and to use the right words for stuff with DD, but ITA with you that it's so easy to start using their words sometimes!  I don't really think it's a big deal when you're doing it with some words sometimes - then it's just fun.  As long as sometimes you use the real word and LO is learning that there is also a different, more grown up word for it, I think that it's kind of fun for kids that their parents are adopting their vocabulary sometimes too.  Everything in moderation, right?
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  • AppleGrapeMSTKAppleGrapeMSTK member
    @Emerald27‌ mostly we implemented the no baby talk rule because DD had lived with MILs house for so long and MIL never used real words for anything. Lawn ornaments were foofoos, hair bands were doodas, and cats were ittle tikkies. DD was 7 and didn't know the real word for cat, it was an issue- but I started the rule when MIL shortened DSs name from Theodore to FiFi and DD followed suit.
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