Talking to Babies Boosts Brain Development and Early Vocabulary

How much time do you spend talking to your baby each day?

According to a study, speaking with babies helps shape the structure of their developing brains and improves vocabulary from a very young age.

For the purpose of the study, the research team installed recording devices that documented 62,800 hours of parent child speech interaction. The study included 87 children aged six months and 76 children aged two and a half years.

The findings, which were published in the scientific journal Journal of Neuroscience, showed that toddlers who were exposed to a greater amount of speech from their parents also produced more sounds and vocalizations themselves than toddlers who were not exposed to the same amount of speech.

What the Brain Scans Revealed

Later, the babies underwent MRI scans in order to examine the concentration of myelin in the brain.

According to the researchers, a strong connection was found between the amount of time parents spoke with their children and the level of myelin concentration, which plays an important role in brain development.

In other words, the more language the children were exposed to, the greater the concentration of myelin in the brain.

At the same time, among six month old infants, the study found a different pattern: increased speech exposure was associated with lower myelin concentration, which researchers believe may reflect an earlier stage of brain development.

The lead author of the study, Professor John Spencer of the University of East Anglia, concludes that we should speak with our children as much as possible, because it has significant implications for shaping the structure of the developing brain.