No One's Teaching Baby To Talk

The Atlantic, 2013

ARTICLE:

Before tablets, cellphones and whichever else tech gadget currently catches our fancy, parents talked to their babies. Strolling down the street meant baby talk time, with adults babbling along with their infants as if we were overgrown babies ourselves. But now parents have been replacing the idle chatter with digital multi-tasking, and as a result, potentially stunting children's ability to learn speech as babies. When it comes to learning how to speak, the quality and quantity of the words babies are exposed to matters; conversational language, especially, is essential in order for babies to understand speech--and to be proficient--as children. The type of interaction is also important. In this article, the study found mothers who actively responded to their babies vocalizations by touching them, smiling or moving closer saw their babies make more complex vocalizations, and much faster than the control group. We often heard how technology is killing the written language. It appears it's also affecting the words we hear and say.


SITE: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/papa-dont-text/309385/