Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Power of Talking to Your Baby

Interesting article in the NYT about  all the benefits of talking to your baby a lot and often. And the chatter they hear from the TV doesn't count. 
 

...Another idea, however, is creeping into the policy debate: that the key to early learning is talking — specifically, a child’s exposure to language spoken by parents and caretakers from birth to age 3, the more the better. It turns out, evidence is showing, that the much-ridiculed stream of parent-to-child baby talk — Feel Teddy’s nose! It’s so soft! Cars make noise — look, there’s a yellow one! Baby feels hungry? Now Mommy is opening the refrigerator! — is very, very important. (So put those smartphones away!)