Baby talk: The importance of babbling for baby's language development

You might think your baby’s babbling is just cute baby talk. But it’s actually one of the signs baby will talk soon. Baby babbling can be a start of language development.

When I was a rookie mom and my first child turned one, a particularly concerned acquaintance kept asking me, “so, is he talking yet?”. And every time she asked me this question, my mumbled reply was, “no, not yet”.

As the months went by, I started to get really worried. The only ‘proper’ words he said were ‘da’ (this could have meant ‘dog’ or ‘dad’ – who knows) and ‘ammi’ (that would be me) and a few more.

But the majority of his speech was made up of ‘baby talk’ or babbling as it is known. This went on until he was a little over two years old, of course, more frequently interspersed with ‘proper’ words.

Now, I know better. I really shouldn’t have been so worried back then, because babbling, or baby talk, is a perfectly normal part of a child’s development, and with some little ones, it goes on for longer than for others.

So, if your little one is babbling merrily away and you are starting to worry about when he will really start to talk, here is some great information for you to understand exactly how his babbling is actually helping him with language development.

Baby talk as part of language development

“Dad-dad ba ba ba baaa, mum-mum…”

While babbling may often sound like a string of nonsensical utterances, it’s actually not. Research shows that baby talk is a really important component of language development. But in order to optimize this aspect of speech development, there is one other very important element: your response to the baby.

In the past, parents were often told to talk to their babies using regular adult speech. However, current research has found that when babbling is prompted and responded to with ‘Parentese’ – the exaggerated and highly animated style of speech parents use to talk to their baby – the result is most likely better language acquisition skills.

The encouragement of babbling has also been found to help bridge the ‘word gap’, which is the term used to indicate the difference in speech and language development between babies at opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum.

So babies from higher-income families are thought to develop language and speech at a faster pace because their parents are highly responsive to their babbling. This is the opposite for little ones of lower income families, for a variety of reasons.

Babbling meaning

How to teach baby to talk

Ramírez-Esparza, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, and her colleagues in UConn’s Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, and Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, led a study on early language development in little ones in 2015.

What they discovered was that the style of speech parents use, as well as the social context within which this speech takes place, is more effective at helping a baby’s vocabulary grow than the number of words used.

Twenty-six babies (around one year of age) took part in the study. They wore vests containing audio recorders that collected sounds from their auditory environment for eight hours a day for four days.

Researchers analyzed the recorded speech and when the babies were two years old, parents filled out a questionnaire measuring how many words their children knew. It was found that babies who had heard more baby talk knew more words.

“What our study shows is that how you talk to children matters,” Ramírez-Esparza says, “and the use of ‘parentese’ is much better at developing language than regular adult speech. It’s even better if communication occurs during one-on-one interactions.”

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Here are some of the most important findings of the study, summarized for you: 

1. Encourage your baby’s babbling by using exaggerated vowels in your Parentese. For example, “How are youuuu?” and “Look at thaaaaat!”.
2. Raise the pitch of your voice when talking to your little one to encourage more babbling from him in response.
3. Whenever possible, ‘talk’ to your baby when no distractions (other kids, adults) are around.
4. Talk to your baby using Parentese as frequently as possible, even though you might feel a little silly doing so!
5. Use Parentese with a happy tone of voice, and while going about day-to-day activities, e.g. “Yum, this tastes so goooood!” or “Let’s find your shoooes!”.
6. Read aloud to your baby whenever you can in order to ensure heightened communication.

Other than these tips, encourage your baby’s speech development by:

1. Imitating his babbling,
2. Making eye contact when he’s babbling to you,
3. Pointing out and verbalising noises: “Listen, that doggy is saying ‘WOOOF, WOOOF!'”
4. Not worrying about sounding silly or not using ‘real’ words.

Moms and dads, do keep in mind that speech delay in kids may be a red flag for other developmental issues. If you suspect this, speak to a doctor without delay.

Signs baby will talk soon

Even if they aren’t technically speaking, babies begin communicating at a young age. For example, when a baby cries when he is hungry. 

“Even babies, before they get words, they can communicate what they need with noises and gestures,” says Phil Boucher, a doctor in Lincoln, Nebraska, and host of the “Parenting Matters” podcast tells Today in an article.

Every baby is different when it comes to vocalizing and uttering words. “Sometimes parents come in and think that their child has to be at this point on this day or there’s something wrong, and I try and remind them that there’s a large continuum of normal for developmental milestones,” says Boucher. 

Here’s a rundown of how things usually proceed in a child’s language development.

1. 4-6 months: babbling
2. 7-11 months: consonants and first words
3. 12-18 means: words that mean something
4. 24 months and onward: wider vocabulary that makes sense

When a baby should start talking

Boys have a tendency for speaking later than girls. The child achieves language milestones in a range, with females falling on the earlier end of the spectrum.

Even if boys lag behind girls in this area, it’s important to remember that we’re still seeking for them to develop their language skills within the normal range.

15 percent to 25% of young toddlers have a communication problem. Boys develop language skills a little later than girls, but “late-talking youngsters” are those who speak fewer than 10 words by the age of 18 to 20 months or fewer than 50 words by the age of 21 to 30 months.

So don’t worry if your baby boy seems to talk late. It’s normal! However, if you think that there may be a language delay, consult a doctor immediately for an early and proper assessment and treatment.

Home remedies for late talking child

How can you help improve your child’s language skills? Worried that your child might be a late talker? Here are some tips from Psychology Today.

1. To aid their child’s language development, the most important thing a parent can do is talk to them. 

While parents do not “teach” their children to speak in the traditional sense, infants require a vast quantity of linguistic data to learn all of the sounds, words, and rules that will make up their adult grammar. Both quantity and quality matter—the amount of conversation and a diverse vocabulary are important indicators of future linguistic performance.

2. Babies do not learn through imitation or correction.

In fact, there is substantial evidence that they are unable to replicate forms that they have not yet acquired. For example, a parent might remark, “Daddy went to work,” to which a youngster might respond, “Daddy go work,”. Even if the parent corrects, “Daddy went.”

Children figure it out and then start using it when they are ready using information they have learned about the world through experience, other words in a sentence they already know, and their outstanding data analysis skills. So don’t worry about rectifying early mistakes; they’re self-correcting.

3. Baby talk will not harm your infant, often known as caregiverese.

As mentioned earlier, majority of research indicates that it has a significant favorable impact on children’s language skills. A recent study indicated that parents who received coaching on their infant-directed speaking style enhanced their babies’ vocalizations and vocabulary learning considerably. According to other research, the exaggerated acoustic patterns of baby speak assist infants with distinguishing between speech sounds in their language.

4. To learn the forms and functions of language, children require engaging language experience. 

It will not help children learn their own language or a foreign language if they sit in front of the TV or listen to French lessons on a CD. The social back-and-forth component of language appears to drive the linguistic train. As well as the situational information a kid might learn from a specific interaction at a given location and from seeing others in that context.

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