Critical period: language consequence of not using "speaking motherese" and "baby talk" in babies

 

Language development in babies thanks to speaking 'motherese' and 'baby talk' involving the critical period as a consequence.

We will talk about the language development of babies taking into account two important factors and including as a consequence the critical period.

Baby talk and mothers in the language

Children, when they learn a language, usually understand it by the pitch in which we speak, the rhythm of the words. In fact, parents often exaggerate these features of the language when talking with their infants to understand, this kind of language is called “motherese”. This type of speech is different from that spoken with adults. Also, words produced in insolation are also easier for infants to learn, babies' first words are often those heard most frequently in isolation in early development.

An interesting fact is that babies, even before birth, learn language, but how? The answer is that, in the third trimester of pregnancy, when the infant's ears are sufficiently developed, the way the mother speaks, the pitch in which she speaks are transmitted through the fluids in the womb. According to Catherine mentions that it is like being in a swimming pool, because it is difficult to hear individual sounds underwater, but we can be guided by rhythm and intonation, which is considered an important language effect (Catherine, 2016). With this, making babies more used to their mother's speech and the type of intonation she uses.

Critical period

If children are not exposed to language in this during of time, they won’t be able to develop their communication skills. There is a period of ages where children can develop a language easier, when they are babies until 12 years old, after that time the brain lost elasticity and as an adult is harder to learn the language, also you can develop the fossilization stage where you stop getting better.

Also, there are cases about what happens when children don’t relate with the language, in those cases there are some abilities or different ways of how they developed their communication, also exits some cases where the capacity of language didn't develop in any other way.

Cases such as: Kaspar Hauser, Genie, Anna, Isabelle, etc.

For this reason, it is important that our parents, especcially our mothers, are in contact wirh us from a young age. Based on this, we will show a video below: 

The connection we have with our parents from an early age is very important in language development because they help us learn and know things. Usually, when we are babies, we tend to pay more attention when our mother speaks to us in a softer tone or as if she were singing because that kind of voice is more pleasant.

Comprehension activity

Word List

Additional activities