EXPOSURE TO DIFFERENT SPEECH SOUNDS IN INFANCY HELPS THE CHILD TO DEVELOP A BIGGER VOCABULARY WHEN THE CHILD IS OLDER

(involving listening and comprehension of language) develop earlier than expressive language skills.

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1. Honig, A. (Ed.) (2014). Fostering Early Language with Infants and Toddlers. Montessori Life, 26(2), 28–31.

There is increasing evidence that in the first year of life, infants are acquiring detailed information about language by listening and analysing linguistic inputs.

Exposing children to different speech sounds when they are young helps them to develop a bigger vocabulary when they are older. 40 typically developing infants (22 girls and 18 boys) participated in a study in Boston and were tracked from 7½ months through 24 months. Results demonstrated a strong degree of association between infant word segmentation abilities at 7 months and productive vocabulary size at 24 months, suggesting that greater word exposure at a younger age could help expand their vocabulary at a later age.

Studies have shown that from as early as infancy, children are able to focus on what adults are talking about and hear the speech sounds used around them.

Infants can discern differences in speech sounds (e.g. vowels) as soon as they are born.

In a study by researchers, Tsao, Liu, and Kuhl, speech discrimination was measured in 28 six-month-old infants using a conditioned head-turn task. At 13, 16, and 24 months of age, language development was assessed in these same children. Results demonstrated significant correlations between speech perception at 6 months of age and later language (word understanding, word production, phrase understanding).

The finding that speech perception performance at 6 months predicts language at 2 years supports the idea that phonetic perception may play an important role in language acquisition. This suggests parents should interact with and speak to their infants because speech perception from as young as 6 months of age can affect their ability to acquire language when they are 2 years old and in the later years.

Parents who interact with infants and toddlers on a face-to-face basis, through eye gazing and talking about what they both are seeing and experiencing, can help children build attention, language and learning skills.

Neural studies in young infants have found that parents and infants maintaining eye contact and sharing about things together play a crucial role in young infants’ speech processing, specifically enhancing their attention to relevant social information about the speaker and the objects the speaker is referring to.

Language learning occurs in social contexts where there is active engagement between adults and children.

Early language learning requires warm human interactions. Watching televisions and computers are not sufficient. Mutually respectful, low-stress exchanges between infants and competent language users (adults or other children) facilitate learning. Studies show that language learning requires the children’s active engagement with the input.

Children must monitor the input, detecting, for instance, differences between what they heard and what they might have said or what they thought a word meant. Recognition of the discrepancy helps children progress in learning semantics and syntax. Adults can talk about what children are doing or expand on what they just said to facilitate their active engagement.

While the quantity of infants’ talk experience makes up a facilitative aspect of their language environment, interaction quality is also significant.

A review of 103 studies by researchers found that language delivered in the context of an adult-child interaction characterised by responsiveness and positive regard helps to scaffold children’s learning and encourages verbal behaviours. The amount and quality of adult-child conversation is correlated with children’s subsequent language and literacy development.

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12. National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel, a scientific synthesis of early literacy development and implications for intervention. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy.

13. Strickland, D. S., & Shanahan, T. (2004). Laying the groundwork for literacy. Educational Leadership, 61(6), 74–77.

A systematic review of 60 studies, also found that when talking to children, parents’ contingency (i.e. talking to the child when the child is paying attention and oriented to hearing and processing what is said) and their efforts in pre-literacy activities (e.g. introducing and reading books with the child) are critical in supporting language development in the first three years of life. Parental elaboration of language such as explaining and expanding on what the child said had little effect in supporting language development as compared to talking and pre-literacy activities. Using gestures and allowing children to interact with siblings and peers also did not have as strong an effect, however, they could be helpful and hence could be used.

Researchers found that talkative parents included affirmative, encouraging, and child-responsive talk into their talk repertoire – features that were much less apparent in homes where infants experienced very low levels of talk.

Another researchers reported that the quantity of infant-directed talk during mealtimes was positively associated with mothers’ tendency to extend their topic of conversation over multiple utterances as well as infants’ tendency to respond to the topic. Toddlers who have frequent social interactions with adults are more likely to make early language sounds, matching their language to what they hear.

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17. Lawhon, T., & Cobb, J. B. (2002). Routines that build emergent literacy skills in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Early Childhood Education Journal, 30(2), 113-118.

Talking to children during daily caregiving routines also helps them to acquire listening, comprehension and communication skills.

In the contexts of early childhood centres, researchers found that the quantity of educator-talk to children during mealtime was related to the quality of their turn-taking efforts and question use.

Not all kinds of parental input facilitate language development. Research has shown some forms of maternal directives, such as those that facilitate the child's engagement in ongoing activity or interests, have been associated with better child language outcomes. However, directive language that changes the child's focus, or has the primary goal of directing or managing the child's behaviour has been shown to slow down pace of children’s language development because they do not encourage them to respond or contribute verbally.

Calling infants by their names has been found to be helpful in guiding their attention during conversation. Infants are sensitive to their own name by 4 months of age. Infants’ electroencephalogram (EEG) was measured as they heard their own name or stranger's names and while looking at novel objects. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in response to names revealed that infants differentiate their own name from strangers’ names from the first phoneme. The amplitude of the ERPs to objects indicated that infants attended more to objects after hearing their own names compared to another name. Thus, by 5 months of age, infants not only detect their name, but also use it as a social cue to guide their attention to events and objects in the world.

Studies have also found it beneficial to have a

from infancy, with ongoing access to books and reading as this also helps to develop children’s language ability in later years. Reading to infants stimulates listening and language skills.

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22. Kupetz, B. N., & Green, E. J. (1997). Sharing Books with Infants and Toddlers: Facing the Challenges. Young Children, 52(2), 22–27.

Holding infants and showing them the pictures helps with eye focusing.

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17. Lawhon, T., & Cobb, J. B. (2002). Routines that build emergent literacy skills in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Early Childhood Education Journal, 30(2), 113-118.

Reading with infants and toddlers also helps parents to be sensitive to the level of children’s language development and helps them to better pitch their language to the children’s ability. This has effects on later literacy and learning.

Putting sounds (phonemes, rhymes and words) to music may help enhance young children’s receptive language skills (as they may understand words that they may not yet be able to say). Music gives children easy access to practicing language and deciphering meaning, different sounds and words. Children who can distinguish different sounds and phonemes are more likely to develop stronger literacy skills over time.

Music supports this critical skill because most songs include rhyming or substituting one phoneme for another. Songs and musical activities have been shown to increase children’s vocabulary as new words are introduced through the lyrics.