“Goo goo ga ga? Are wu my widdle baby?” If your idea of “baby talk” makes you throw up in your mouth a little, then it’s time to get educated.
True baby talk, which a new study shows can boost infant brain and speech development, is actually proper adult speech, just delivered in a different cadence.
“It uses real words and correct grammar, but it does use a higher pitch, a slower tempo and an exaggerated intonation,” said Naja Ferjan Ramirez, an assistant professor at the department of linguistics at the University of Washington.
“What people think of as baby talk is a combination of silly sounds and words, sometimes with incorrect grammar,” Ferjan Ramirez explained, “like ‘Oooh, your shozie wozies on your widdle feets.’ “
‘Not just listening but talking’
A parenting speaking style that is used in nearly every language in the world, true “baby talk” became known as “motherese” and today is called “parentese” — because, after all, it’s not just moms who use it. Many dads, grandparents, older siblings, aunts, uncles and babysitters speak parentese, intuitively aware that it helps the baby tune in socially and respond, even if only through babbling.
“Parentese has three characteristics,” said Patricia Kuhl, the co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, who has been studying children’s early language learning for decades.
“One of them is that it has a higher overall pitch, about an octave higher,” Kuhl said. “Another is that intonation contours are very curvy; the highs are higher, the lows are lower, and it sounds excited and happy.
“And then it’s slower, with pauses between phrases to give the baby time to participate in this social interaction,” Kuhl said.
As it turns out, encouraging the “social brain” is key to boosting a baby’s speech and language development, said Kuhl, an internationally known pioneer in the use of brain imaging.
And babies instinctively prefer it — as if they are wired to respond. Maybe they are.
Kuhl shared a video from an older experiment starring 7-month-old “Paul” to illustrate a baby’s preference for parentese.
In the black and white video, Paul sits on his mother’s lap in an enclosed space. On Paul’s left side, out of site behind a wall, a woman speaks eight seconds of parentese. On his right, a woman speaks in a normal adult tone. Paul samples both, then consistently prefers the voice speaking parentese.
Kuhl’s lab has done studies which show when infants listen to speech, “not only does the auditory cortex area in their brain light up, but the motor areas that will eventually speak light up,” she said, showing the baby is getting ready to talk back.
“The more parents naturally use parentese in their homes when speaking to their children, the better and faster those language skills develop,” Kuhl said. “So, it turns out that parentese is a social catalyst for language. It gets kids not just listening but talking.”
Can you boost parentese with coaching?
In 2018, Kuhl and Ferjan Ramirez published a study that showed when parents were coached in parentese, their babies babbled more and had more words by 14 months than those who were not trained.
In a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team reports on speech development in the same group of babies at 18 months. Despite the fact that all 48 participating families used some parentese at the start of the study, it was the babies of coached parents who showed significant gains in conversational turn-taking and vocalizations between 14 and 18 months.
“Children of coached parents produced real words, such as ball or milk, at almost twice the rate of children whose parents were in the control group,” Ferjan Ramirez said.
In addition, she said, babies whose parents were coached had an average vocabulary of 100 words compared to the 60 words in the control group.
Just how did researchers measure the improvement over this period? For an entire weekend when the babies were 6, 10, 14 and 18-months old, all 48 sets of dressed their babies with vests with built-in audio recorders that captured all of their interactions.
Then parents randomly assigned to receive instruction then came into the lab for one-on-one coaching when their baby was 6, 10 and 14 months.
After receiving education on the science behind the benefits of speaking to their babies, the parents also listened to themselves using parentese. They were also coached on how to incorporate more such speak into the day, and encouraged to engage their babies in back-and-forth exchanges called conversational turns.
In the lab, an interaction is counted as a “turn” if the baby responds with an utterance within a second or two, Kuhl explained, with more turn-taking highly correlated with the baby’s future success in language.
“Babies need to be engaged socially in order to learn language. They have to have a drive to communicate. They have to want to, and parentese seems to help make them want to,” Kuhl said.
The study is continuing. At this time the babies are about three, old enough to undergo brain imaging with new MRIs that, Kuhl stresses, are quite safe at that age. While publication of any new findings will take time, Kuhl is encouraged.
“Measures of language skill continue to show that the kids in the coached group are way ahead of the kids in the control group,” Kuhl said. “And scans of white and gray matter in the brain will show if there are permanent changes induced by this style of interacting with a child.
“Have we strengthened the connectivity between the areas of the brain responsible for language development?” Kuhl asked. “I’ll be very interested to find out.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
