Baby Talk
Babies will pay more attention to baby talk than regular speech, regardless of which languages they're used to hearing, according to a study by UCLA's Language Acquisition Lab.
The study found that babies who were exposed to two languages had a(n) (great) interest in infant-directed speech than adult-directed speech. However, some parents' concern is teaching two languages could mean an infant won't learn to speak on time, but the new study shows bilingual babies are developmentally right on track.
In the study, which took place at 17 labs on four continents, researchers observed 333 bilingual babies and 384 monolingual babies, (range) in age from 6 to 9 months and 12 to 15 months. Each baby would sit on a parent's lap while recordings of an English-speaking mother, using infant-directed speech or adult-directed speech, played from speakers on the left or the right. Computer tracking measured each baby looked in the direction of each sound.
According to the study, 6-to 9-month-old babies who had mothers with higher levels of education preferred baby talk more than babies mothers had less education. It is very likely the mothers with higher education levels spoke more to the babies and used infant-directed speech more often.
"Crucially for parents, we found that development of learning and attention is similar infants, whether they're learning one or two languages, "said Megha Sundara, a UCLA linguistics professor. "And, of course, learning a language earlier helps you (learn) it better, so bilingualism is a win-win. "
As the research continues, parents can babble to their babies in one language or two, and rest easy knowing they (not cause) any confusion.
