Talk to Me
When their daughter, Makena, was born four years ago, Hermosa Beach residents and first-time parents Karlee and Dave McCarroll did all the right things to encourage her language development.
“Reading to Makena, even as a baby, helped tremendously as far as teaching her new words,” said Karlee McCarroll. “And I’ve always talked with her--from day one--as if she could understand everything I said.”
These days, the amount of talking that goes on in the McCarroll house is about to increase big time. Identical twins Morgan and Kennedi, at 20 months, are “babbling all the time,” McCarroll said.
Now an experienced mom, McCarroll is looking forward to the great language explosion that occurs toward the end of the second year. But she still worries that she could be doing more to help encourage her toddlers’ language skills.
McCarroll isn’t alone in her parental hand-wringing, according to Lise Eliot, assistant professor of cell biology and anatomy at the Chicago Medical School.
“If parents spend the first year of their child’s life worrying mostly about motor development, we devote the second to language,” said Eliot, who has two young children. “And if a child’s speech isn’t all that forthcoming, we begin nervously reading up on language delays and disorders.”
Fortunately, the vast majority of children learn language without a hitch, Eliot said. When you think of how difficult it is to master a new language yourself, she pointed out, the fact that children 3 or 4 years old, who can’t even add or tie their shoes, can understand and speak in full, complex sentences without any training can seem pretty amazing.
“You become convinced, as most linguists now are, that human language is an instinct, a behavior as innate and inevitable as sleeping--or eating,” Eliot said, adding that some researchers have come to this conclusion after seeing how young children will invent their own language (deaf children singing spontaneously, for example) if for some reason they are unable to pick up on the language around them.
We’ve come a long way, just in the last few years, in our understanding of how babies learn language, said Peter Jusczyk, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
“I remember my mother telling me, when my sister was born, that babies really couldn’t see things for the first six months,” Jusczyk said. “It was also thought that babies didn’t really understand language until they were able to produce it.”
Back when our parents were reading baby books, popular learning theorist B.F. Skinner argued that a child learns language through behavioral feedback, a trial-and-error process of having the correct words rewarded (getting a bottle after saying “milk”) and the incorrect words ignored (because “mug” will be misunderstood), Eliot explained.
Speaking Is Innate and Instinctive
But researchers now believe a baby’s ability to learn language is much more than trial and error. It’s hard-wired into the brain right from the start.
Watch how young children constantly think up new words and phrases, which make sense to them, that couldn’t possibly have been shaped by mimicking Mom or Dad, Eliot said.
But just because language appears to be instinctive, it doesn’t mean babies and toddlers don’t benefit greatly from interaction with their parents and caregivers. In fact, a baby’s day-to-day experience is so important to language development that a baby of any racial or cultural origin, “can be adopted into another country or culture and end up sounding indistinguishable from native-born speakers,” Eliot said.
So it’s up to parents to provide a language-rich environment right from the start. And that includes the baby talk that so many parents instinctively use with their children, said Roberta Golinkoff, director of the Infant Language Laboratory at the University of Delaware.
Even immediately after birth, babies respond more to infant-directed talk than they do to adult-directed talk, Golinkoff said. When speaking baby talk, “your facial expressions are exaggerated. Your eyes open wide. That’s very appealing to a baby,” she said, noting that researchers repeatedly have found that baby talk helps infants differentiate between sounds.
Experts dispute the notion that baby talk will result in children who, when they are older and speaking more easily, will sound too much like babies.
Baby talk “naturally stops as the child gets older and is able to better communicate with the parent,” Golinkoff explained.
While you’re doing all that baby talk, be sure to say your child’s name frequently because researchers have found that babies are picking up on the sound of their own name as early as 4 1/2 months, Jusczyk said.
By about 9 months, babies begin understanding the frequency of patterns in language, Jusczyk said. A baby will listen longer to the sounds that occur frequently.
While knowing how language skills develop is helpful for parents, they shouldn’t get too hung up on milestones, because normal development can vary widely. For example, siblings of different sexes may learn language at different speeds.
“One recent study found that as early as mid-gestation, female fetuses move their mouths significantly more than male fetuses, as if already practicing for a lifetime of speech,” Eliot said.
Girl babies, on average, start talking a month or two earlier than boys, experts say. But boys usually catch up during the vocabulary spurt that occurs between 18 and 24 months, when toddlers can learn an amazing 10 to 20 words a day, Jusczyk said.
Interaction Is Key to Learning
Long before your child starts holding up her end of the conversation, the best thing you can do to help improve her language skills is talk with her, Eliot said.
“Babies and toddlers need to hear a lot of conversations. But that doesn’t mean you plug your baby in front of a TV or just let her listen while you talk on the phone.”
It’s the interaction with you that will make all the difference.
Repetition is important, but don’t underestimate your child.
“Babies get bored,” Eliot said. “You need to keep changing things.” So instead of saying “cup” over and over while pointing to a cup, try saying, “Would you like the blue cup or the purple cup?” or “Would you like water or juice in your cup?”
Try to stay just slightly ahead of your baby’s developmental stages, Eliot suggested. At 3 to 4 months old, most babies will be making mostly vowel sounds, for example. So this is a good time to start making repetitive consonant sounds, such as pointing to pictures and talking about “the cat, the cow and the canary” in a children’s book.
Through the first year, a baby concentrates primarily on individual words. But at 16 to 18 months, toddlers begin to appreciate differences in word order, Eliot said. For example, in one study, 16- to 18-month-olds were seated in front of two TVs, each showing “Sesame Street” puppets acting out one of the following two sentences: “Big Bird is tickling Cookie Monster” or “Cookie Monster is tickling Big Bird.” The children paid more attention to the video that corresponded correctly to whichever sentence was playing on voice-over.
This ability to appreciate the meaning of word order is helpful when, at 18 to 24 months, toddlers begin speaking two-word phrases themselves. Just listen to a 2-year-old: “I go.” “See kitty.” “More milk.”
Childhood Is Best Time to Train the Tongue
If learning one’s native tongue is a big job, parents may be concerned that exposing a baby to two or more languages, either in a bilingual home or through time spent with a caretaker who speaks a different language, might be too much of a burden. It’s not, said Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, a pediatrician and a popular author of several books on child development.
“I wish I had raised my children bilingually,” he said. “If a child is lucky enough to hear two languages--or even three--he is set up to be bilingual.”
Hearing different languages can be confusing at first, Brazelton admitted, and there can be delays in learning English as the child sorts out more than one language. But in the end, the child comes out ahead, he said.
Golinkoff agrees.
“We know from research that the critical period, when a person is most receptive to learning multiple languages, is before puberty,” she said. “And to become the best native speaker, the best time to learn is age 5 and under. So what do we do in this country? We teach foreign languages after puberty.”
It’s never too soon to introduce a baby to the joys of books and words. Use cloth or cardboard books for babies, Golinkoff suggested. Now is the time to make books fun, so don’t make proper page-turning an issue, and don’t worry if your child wants to skip pages or just talk about the pictures, she added. Just have a good time.
If, for some reason, parents are unable to read with their child, “perhaps an older sibling or a baby-sitter can read to him,” Jusczyk said. Visiting story time at a library, with the child sitting cozily in a parent’s lap, also helps promote a love of books and language.
“The important thing is to show your child that reading is a fun, interesting thing to do, and that you value it,” Jusczyk said.
Language Milestones
Parents can watch for these predictable signs of language development:
By 3 months: Smiles at the sound of your voice and begins to babble. Begins to imitate some sounds and turns her head toward the direction of sounds.
By 7 months: Responds to own name. Begins to respond to “no” and to distinguish emotions by tone of voice. Responds to sound by making sounds. Uses voice to express happiness and displeasure, and babbles chains of consonants.
By 1 year: Pays increasing attention to speech and responds to simple verbal requests and to “no.” Babbles with inflection and says “dada” and “mama.” Uses exclamations such as “Uh-oh!” and tries to imitate words.
By 2 years: Recognizes names of familiar people, objects and body parts. Points to objects or a picture when it is named for her. Says several single words by 15 to 18 months. Uses phrases (by 18 to 24 months). Follows simple instructions and repeats words overheard in conversation.
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics
