Baby talk helps language development in infants

one-on-one baby talk with their infant improve their vocabulary and their overall language development.

By Lee Kyung-min

Parent's one-on-one baby talk with their infant improve their vocabulary and their overall language development, study showed, Medical Daily reported Wednesday.

According to a study by the University of Washington and University of Connecticut, parents who exaggerated vowels like "How are youuuuu?" and raised the pitch of their voices led to more babbling from the 1-year-olds.

The more parents exaggerated vowels, the more the one-year olds babbled, which is a forerunner of word production. The study added that this proved especially effective when a parent spoke to the child individually rather than with other adults and children around.

The researchers had 26 one-year-olds wear vests that contained audio recorders, and their sounds were interpreted by LENA (language environment analysis) software.

"The prevalence of baby talk in one-on-one conversations with children is linked to better language development, both concurrent and future," said Patricia Kuhl, co-author and co-director of UW's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.

"The fact that the infant's babbling itself plays a role in future language development shows how important the interchange between parent and child is," Kuhl added.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Developmental Science.

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