Just because your baby can’t talk yet, it doesn’t mean you should stay quiet. Research has consistently shown that parents who talk more to their baby see greater improvements in their baby’s language skills. Here are our top 4 science-backed tips for boosting language development.
1. Motherese
Researchers at Princeton found that mothers across 10 languages all do one thing in common when they talk to their babies: they increase the tone of their voice, simplify their grammar, and exaggerate speech melodies. It turns out, speaking to your baby like this is almost instinctive and has positive effects on their language development.
2. Serve and return
We have a whole article dedicated to 'serve and return' but in short, it’s the initiation of interaction by your child and how you respond. For example, if you’re reading a story and your baby makes cooing sounds or touches something on the page, you should say or do something in return.
3. Talk more
Quantity does matter! Research consistently shows that when parents talk more to their babies, they find greater development in receptive language skills.
4. The perfect listener
Parents often struggle to think of things to talk to their baby about - after all, it might feel like you’re talking to yourself. But it turns out, babies are the perfect listeners. Here are some topics that you can talk about.
- • How your day went
- • Your grocery shopping list
- • Narrate your actions
- • Favorite foods, movies, books and so on
- • Fun memories
