Baby Language and Speech Development

Posted: 26. June, 2011 Comments Off

Recognition of language and speech starts from before birth and continues up until around 10 years of age. The optimum time for learning a foreign language is before the age of 6, however. It then becomes increasingly difficult to master the new sounds that form the basis of different cultures.

A baby starts babbling sounds together to make nonsensical phrases by the age of 8 weeks. The more words your infant hears, both in the womb and during early life after birth, the faster he will learn his native language. The basic sounds that make up the words of a particular language are hard-wired into the brain by the age of 1 year. Neurons that respond to different sounds are spaced apart according to how similar the sounds are. In English for example, ‘Rrr’ and ‘Lll’ sound quite different and are pro¬grammed apart so they are more easily recognized. In Chinese, ‘Rrr’ and ‘Lll’ sound very similar and are programmed in to neu¬rons sitting close together. As a result, a child brought up in a home where Chinese is spoken will find it more difficult to dis¬tinguish between these two sounds should he later learn to speak English in secondary school. Similarly, English-speaking children will find difficulty in rolling their Rs as the French do, as this is not a sound they are accustomed to.

If you have the opportunity to expose your child to the sounds of a different language, as from a bilingual parent or an au pair, do so from as early an age as possible. Preferably from birth. It is much easier for your child to learn a second language along with the first, than to learn it afterwards when he is older.

Speak to your baby as much as possible. Explain what you are doing when you are making his breakfast, putting on his clothes or doing housework. Immerse him in the sounds of words as much as possible – although remember that quiet periods offer¬ing time for reflection are important, too. If you are concentrat¬ing on something and are unable to interact with your baby for a while, put on the radio so he can still hear some background conversation and music. Interestingly, it did not seem to matter what words the mother used – hearing simple words seemed to be just as good for laying down ‘sound’ circuits in the brain as hearing complex words. These circuits then act as the internal dictionary that starts to absorb more words.

Yet more research shows that babies and infants who were talked to a lot from an early age had significantly higher IQ scores than those who received less parental communication. They also had significantly more advanced creativity, reading, writing, problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

The size of your child’s vocabulary will continue to increase throughout life as long as you encourage him to retain his innate love of words and word games such as Scrabble or crosswords.

New research suggests that children whose parents read to them at a very young age will perform better when learning to read, write and do arithmetic. This was independent of social class or environmental background. Families of 300 9-month-old children were given a free book, a poetry poster and information on how to join their local library. By the age of 30 months and by the time of starting school, they were reassessed and were significantly ahead in reading, listening and speaking ability, using numbers and han¬dling shapes, spaces and measures than were similar children not exposed to books at an early age.

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