Baby Talk is Bad ?

Baby Talk is Bad for Children, but not for Babies !

The"baby' is often used to describe young children of various ages up to about 3 years. In terms of learning different skills and development it is better to be more precise, and talk about young children as:

1. "infant" - under 1 year old
2. "toddler" - 12-30  months
3. "child" - 1 and 2 above and everything else up to 16?

When people say " talk to babies like they are adults" they are correct, but under the age of 12 months, using "baby talk" in ADDITION, supplies infants with many benefits. It is not a case of  baby talk OR adult talk, but BOTH.

Infants need to hear different types of talk and each teaches babies something different about the human voice and talking.

Each type of talk could be called "baby talk"

1) Baby Talk - A way of talking to babies using a special voice- also called Motherese, Parentese, Caretaker speech,  - high pitched, lilting, sing song voice where the actual words are the same as in adult speech, but spoken in a different way.

Research has shown that babies like, enjoy and pay more attention to "parentese" than the normal fast, flat, joined-up speech adults use to talk to each other.

2) Baby talk for "practice" - repetition of sounds for the pure joy of baby discovering  his own voice and practicing how to make the individual sounds in words.

3) Baby Talk - Mirroring - where the parent repeats the same sound the baby makes to create a conversation. This video below is an excellent example of 'mirroring"

 term

This video below shows three types of talk
"Parentese" - adult words spoken with special lilting voice
Mirroring -  repeating the sounds baby makes
Entertainment - the joy of repetition

Infants (under 12 months) learn different things from each type of speech. In various cultures and many different languages, parents and family members use similar types of " baby talk" called " infant-directed speech', 'parentese" or " motherese" when they talk to their infants.

Infants Become Toddlers

The point around 12 months when a baby changes from being an infant to a toddler marks a big leap forward in language learning. At this stage first words, like mama, dada, cup, hat, cat, no,  appear and it becomes essential to say words clearly, show your toddler the shapes your mouth and lips make. It is also the time when Mirroring 'baby talk",  that copies how infants talk, should not be used with toddlers. Once they begin to actually say words, they need clear, correct speech to copy. They need "parentese" , " motherese" - normal language spoken slowly an clearly with short sentences and a musical lilt.

Before 12 months, babies speech development needs are very different from the later months and years.  Babies will learn to talk well without baby talk, it is true, but it is not BAD. It is beneficial for bonding for the adults and infants it seems perverse to withhold it in the mistaken belief  that it is doing harm before the age of one year, when in fact it is does a lot of good.

Below is a list of links to articles by professionals in the child brain, speech and language development spheres, and other sources where "baby talk" is explained and encouraged for the good effects it has.

"Beweave" it or not, baby talk helps babies learn language. Research shows that babies prefer to listen to our silly baby talk from birth.     

Baby Talk: Communicating with Your Child -- Roberta Golinkoff, PhD 

Adults may feel silly when they talk to babies, but those babies will learn to speak sooner if adults talk to them like infants instead of like other adults, according to a study by Carnegie Mellon University Psychology Professor Erik Thiessen

Carnegie Mellon Study: Adults' Baby Talk Helps Infants Learn To Speak 

For a complete program of activities stretching from birth to age 3 years, you can learn how to best use the different types of "baby talk" while you teach your baby to talk

Speech in children

Speech in Children

It is true that almost all children learn to speak eventually. Mainly speech in children develops simply by the child copying the parents, other family members and people the child meets on a daily basis. Some children learn to talk much earlier than others.  This can be because of differences in how the parents and adult caregivers talk to the child. 

Several research studies have found that the use of a special way of talking to babies called " parentese" or "motherese" or "child directed speech" helps babies to learn new words faster. "Parentese" appears to be a natural way for adults to talk to children; a kind of sing song, high pitched voice that concentrates on long drawn out vowel sounds. 

Sometimes this way of talking is referred to as "baby talk" but sometimes the term "baby talk" is also used for the way some adults talk to babies and toddlers using the immature words babies use when they are still learning how to speak correctly. The difficulty is that it isn't made clear which "baby talk" people refer to when they state whether it is useful or beneficial.

This way of talking to babies is found in countries around the world so it seems to be instinctive. From this it can be judged that "parentese" has been useful for the species as a way to develop speech in children. 

Researching speech in children is becoming easier with the development of hi-tech brain monitoring equipment which lets scientists monitor brian activity in very young babies. It has been shown now that babies prefer to listen to "baby talk". they prefer the higher pitched voice and focus on it in preference to normal adult speech patterns. So not only are parents hard-wired to use baby talk, babies and hard-wired to pay attention to it and that it is an important part of the development of speech in children.

Learn the best way to use baby talk when teaching babies to talk in the ebook Teach Baby to Talk