29, Do We Need to Talk to Babies? The Importance of Talking to Your Baby

5/1/2021

Is it necessary to talk to our babies? Can babies understand what we say? How often is good for them? It is very important to talk to your baby from the day they were born. Talk to them as much as you can, the more you talk the better language skill they will develop. Today’s, we are going to talk about why language skill matters and why we need to talk to our babies.

Language is a multipurpose tool that promotes learning as well as social and emotional development. Parents and caregivers use words and signs to draw infants’ attention to specific objects, people, and events. Children who participate in conversations about others’ feelings, beliefs, and desires gain insight into those perspectives, which supports developing theory-of-mind knowledge. Early exposure appears to be critical, the more experience children have with language and verbal interaction during the first two years, the more advanced their language skills are when they reach school age.

Research shows babies begin to learn language sounds before they were even born. Newborns can not only tell the difference between their mother's language and another language but also show a capability of distinguishing between languages. This means newborns not only can hear and understand every word we say but also can hear and distinguish all the sounds in all the languages in the world. That's about 150 sounds in about 6500 languages.

From the time they were born, babies start to acquire vocabulary and word meaning and well document them. Infants and toddlers comprehend words before they can produce them. Their first words appear around the age of 12 months. Word learning begins gradually and then accelerates as children approach the end of the second year.

Sign language is a great tool for communicating with your babies. Including sign language when you talk to your baby can improve their language understanding. We had a video about the importance of baby sign language, please check it out. It’s great to start talking with your baby as early as you can. You can start by talking about everyday things in your home and family life or whatever you’re doing with your baby at a time. All talking is good for your baby, this could be when you’re changing diapers or having lunch together, and so on. So try to talk to your baby as much as you can during the day.

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