Kids who heard adult speech more often as babies tend to show higher intelligence levels, a recent study discovered. So, if you want to have start kids, marry a chatterbox!
Talkative parents make kids smarter
The work was conducted by a research group from the University of York, which assessed mental development of pre-schoolers as a function of the amount of adult speech they were exposed to.
The focus group involved 107 toddlers between 2 and 4 years old. To find out whether the correlation is real, researchers fitted each little participant’s clothing with a small voice recorder to register any type of verbal interaction between babies and their parents or caregivers during 3 days, for about 16 hours daily.
Additionally, parents had to complete certain activities with their little ones including drawing, matching and copying. The tasks were used to assess cognitive skills of the children involved.
The study’s leading author is Katrina d’Apice, a PhD student at the University of York, the Department of Education. She explained that using the recording devices was helpful to get a deeper insight into how families really were communicating with their young children but to avoid interfering into their relations.
Talking makes babies smarter
Researchers were excited to discover that the amount of speech a child was hearing as a toddler was strongly correlated with how advanced the kid’s cognitive skills were at a later age.
In fact, the more you talk around the kids, the smarter your children will be.
Still, why this actually happens requires further investigation. It could be that more intelligent babies just provoke adults around them to be more outspoken.
Another interesting conclusion worth attention is that the quality of the grownups’ speech matters, too. According to the study report, children tend to learn words easier and faster when people they communicate with use a diverse vocabulary.
The voice recordings were also used to analyze how different parenting and communication styles might affect the child’s behavior. According to the researchers, when parents have a responsive attitude and encourage their little ones to explore the world and express their thoughts and feelings, the kid shows less aggression, disobedience and restlessness.
In fact, the more you talk around the kids, the smarter your children will be.
Verdict: Talk to your kids
According to Sophie von Stumm, the study co-author and the Department of Education Professor at the University of York, the project was a great live observation of home environments children spend their early years in. The group has revealed that the amount of words adults speak to their babies varies significantly not only between families but also between days for the same family.
Anyway, the main thing we should know is that the correlation between how much you talk to your baby and how smart it is going to be really exists. As such, this educational aspect should be treated in a dynamic and adaptive manner. Apparently, communication is not the only experiential factor that you can leverage to boost your baby’s development.
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My parents and grandparents always tried to develop my communication skills and intelligence. Therefore, they read good books for me and talked like I was an adult person even when I was 4. Result was amazing! It really works!
To talk to children is a great way to improve their mind.
And not only with toddlers, but olders too, even more likely, because they able to ask/ understand better. Kids often have more common sense than adults, and far more than teens.
That makes sense to me. Verbal activity obviously has something to do with being smart. Thus as it evolve thanks to communicating with parents, no doubt adult’s talking makes us smarter. My parents read me books nearly every night in my childhood. They’ve got the point.