Talk To Your Baby, the early language campaign of the National
Literacy Trust, is dedicated to encouraging parents and
carers to talk more to their babies, from birth to three.
Learning to use language is a complex process and the role
of parents, as their child's first and most enduring teacher,
is crucial in making it happen.
Language is the key to learning. Children's early communication
skills are regarded as the single best predictor of future
cognitive skills and school performance. Just as importantly,
the ability to communicate is the basis of social and emotional
well-being.
Baby IQ, in using high quality music and images, is stimulating
both hearing and sight, giving parents and carers opportunities
to verbalise the images, and share the experience in words
with their child. Talk To Your Baby welcomes initiatives
that recognise the importance of early two-way exchanges,
encouraging young children to look, think, react and respond.
Recent research has shown that young children need stimulation
in their earliest days, because most brain development occurs
between birth and age two. We are born with all the millions
of neurons that we need in our brains, but we need help
to make them all connect up in a way that makes them work
best for us. What a child sees, hears, touches and feels
before the age of three strengthens and shapes the trillions
of finer connections that will work together to foster learning
throughout life. The part of the brain that shapes the kind
of person we become develops after we are born, maturing
as we reach toddler hood.
Stimulating a young child's mind can be done through simple
acts, like playing, talking, naming things, listening to
music, singing songs and reading together every day. Babies
learn to talk by listening, and learn best if the language
they hear is in the context of what is happening around
them.
Baby IQ gives adults and young children the chance to share
in a visual and musical experience that will provoke talk
naturally. Talking about things as you see them around you
helps to make sense of the world. Giving space in your "conversations"
allows for important babbles in return. It can be exhausting
to constantly see and hear new things, but repetition helps
us to learn. Each time we see the same thing that we like,
we sharpen our memory skills.
References: Dorothy P Dougherty (1999)
How To Talk To Your Baby New York: Avery; Sue Gerhardt (2004)
Why Love Matters London: Brunner-Routledge; L M Rosetti
(1996) Communication Intervention: Birth to Three London:
Singular
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