We all do it when we talk to a baby.
We get all up in their face. Our eyes & mouth open really wide. Everything we say is verrrry slow & drawn out, & we use this sing-song tone that makes us sound, well, let’s be honest, kind of silly.
It feels ridiculous & yet natural, like we just can’t help but do it. And we probably can’t, because we seem to be wired to talk this way to babies. That is because babies use this kind of talk as a way to learn how language works.
Spoken languages are a bunch of sounds put together to make words, which are then put together to communicate something. Babies come into the world having to figure this out. They get here & all they hear is a sea of sounds, no idea where words begin or end. They can’t learn what a word means without first finding that word in the middle of all that noise. Think about when you hear a language that you are totally unfamiliar with. Try finding the words in that stream of talking. At most, you might be able to fins the beginning & ending of sentences, but that probably comes from a lifetime of experience communicating with other people. Babies don’t have that experience. So they need us… & they need that goofy baby talk.
Here’s why: When we make our faces all weird, we hold their attention. That slow, sing-song talking is designed to help them start to learn the sound patterns that make up words. Eventually, they are able to do a pretty sophisticated statistical analyses of sounds & can tell when sounds go together & when they don’t. (They learn, for example, that the ‘TH’ sound is likely to be followed by a vowel sound & not a consonant.) Once they can break down these mechanics, they can focus on learning the meaning behind those sounds.
You probably had no idea that you were teaching language when you were getting all silly with babies… it’s just what you do. Understanding the science behind how children learn can help you know the ‘why’ behind the development process & the role you play. And then perhaps you make tiny adjustments in your interactions… like putting down the cell phone when you are with your baby because you know how much they learn in a face to face moment.