INFANTS SHOW PREFERENCE FOR BABY TALK IN MONTREAL RESEARCH

Research shows that babies have a preference for higher pitched speech, and respond better to speech with higher intonation. A study done in Montreal shows that children will react to ‘baby talk’ before they start babbling, as early as four months.

Babies will produce vowel-like sounds first. In the study, Babies listened to elongated vowel sounds and controlled how long they hear the sounds by gazing at a screen. The babies gazed longer at the screen when the vowel sound was higher pitched and resembled an infant’s vocal property.

This study shows evidence that babies will pay closer attention to parents and caregivers speaking in ‘baby talk’. When doing speech therapy at home  or in the clinic, our clinicians understand the importance of captivating younger children to maximize speech therapy for children. Research shows that babies will attempt to imitate more when they are spoken to with higher pitch melodic speech.

For clinic based or in home speech therapy in Toronto call us to book an appointment for a stuttering assessment or speech therapy at (416) 553-0729.

For more information and to watch the video please click the link below and be directed to the original article.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/infants-show-preference-for-baby-talk-in-montreal-research-1.3075053​