Baby Talk: Babies Prefer Listening to Their Own Kind

12th May, 2015

15 May 2015, Newsletter, SLP

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[Source: Science Daily]

Everyone likes to look at young babies. But who wants to listen? Well…it turns out that other babies do. In fact, a McGill University/UQAM research team has discovered that 6-month-old infants appear to be much more interested in listening to other babies than they are in listening to adults. It is an important finding because the researchers believe that an attraction to infant speech sounds may help to kick start and support the crucial processes involved in learning how to talk. The discovery could also potentially offer new avenues to help infants with problems such as hearing impairment that hinder the development of their language skills.

Infant sounds grab infant attention
The researchers discovered this preference on the part of young infants by doing a series of experiments where they played a repeating vowel sound that mimicked either those made by an adult woman or those made by a baby. The sounds were created using a special synthesis tool. By measuring how long each sound held the infants’ attention, the
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