There is nothing quite like hearing your baby say their actual very first words.
For many parents, this moment happens when their baby is around 12-18 months, with communications like pointing at things commencing a little earlier around 10-12 months.
But guess what? You might not even have to wait that long as scientists now think babies are actually “talking” to their parents from much earlier than this.
Social scientists in the UK have studied how subtle gestures and “micro-behaviors” such as following a person’s gaze or showing someone an object are actually an early method of attention-sharing, which is a key part of human language.
As part of a large study, a team of researchers filmed how caregivers and 10-month-old babies communicated using toys, where the aim was to identify ‘showing’ and ‘giving’ behaviours, as well as recognize the little behavioural cues that indicate what babies are trying to say.
And what they found, was that babies make these gestures a lot, from a very early age.
The study, presented at an Economic and Social Research Council Festival of Social Science event at the University of Manchester, found that babies make these gestures all the time, but that parents often don’t realize that their babies are trying to “talk” to them.
So the next time your baby holds up a toy, try chatting to her about it. As Professor Elena Lieven of the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development says, talking to babies about the things they’re showing an interest in helps their language development.
“The ability to share and direct attention is an essential basis for typical language development, and others have found that it is often impaired in children on the autism spectrum,” Lieven explains.
“Understanding babies’ gestures could be just as important as understanding their early language.”
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