Helping Your Baby Talk: An Overview
Learning a new language is typically a difficult undertaking for most adults, yet babies learn their native language enough to communicate well, in most cases, in less than two years. There are a number of theories as to why babies are such effective learners.
Some of the theories on infant language development suggest that:
- Language learning is a skill that we are all "pre-wired" for or born with
- Language learning begins while the baby is still in the womb and possibly because hearing is the one sense that is well developed by birth
- Adults make learning language easier for babies by talking slower, adjusting the pitch of our voice, and exaggerating the basic elements of speech.
There is likely a little bit of truth to all of them. One thing that is certain, babies do seem to possess superior language learning skills compared to most adults. This information has led most language researchers to believe that there is a language-learning window, or "critical period," during a person's infancy. During this critical period, the sounds your baby hears and makes are both very important.
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