Parents, listen next time your baby babbles

Pay attention, mom and dad, especially when your infant looks at you and babbles.

Parents may not understand a baby’s prattling, but by listening and responding, they let their infants know they can communicate which leads to children forming complex sounds and using language more quickly.

That’s according to a new study by the University of Iowa and Indiana University that found how parents respond to their children’s babbling can actually shape the way infants communicate and use vocalizations.

The findings challenge the belief that human communication is innate and can’t be influenced by parental feedback. Instead, the researchers argue, parents who consciously engage with their babbling infants can accelerate their children’s vocalizing and language learning.

"It's not that we found responsiveness matters," says Julie Gros-Louis, assistant professor of psychology at the UI and corresponding author on the study, published in the July/August edition of the journal Infancy. "It's how a mother responds that matters."

Researchers observed the interactions between 12 mothers and their 8-month-old infants during free play twice a month for 30 minutes over a six-month period. They noted how the mothers responded to their child's positive vocalizations, such as babbling and cooing, especially when it was directed toward the mother. Current research in Gros-Louis's lab has found similar levels of responsiveness of mothers and fathers to infants' babbling.

What does it mean when babies babble? At early ages when babbling first appears (6 to 8 months), babbling doesn’t truly “mean” anything. A baby may repeat the syllables “ma-ma-ma-ma” but may not yet realize that these sounds can be used to represent his mother. Rather, he is simply experimenting with the mouth and the process of sound formation. But that doesn’t mean that babbling is not important!

As children experiment with sounds and learn how to control their articulators, they are setting the stage for the development of their first words and for future language skills. Also, babbling helps babies experience the social aspects of communication. Parents will often engage in turn-taking with their babies where the baby will babble and then the adult will imitate the production or vary the sound and see if the child will imitate the new sound. In this way, babies learn about crucial social language skills like turn-taking, eye contact and imitation.

What is reduplicated babbling?

Reduplicated babbling means that the baby is repeating the same syllable several times. So “ma-ma-ma” and “pa-pa-pa” are reduplicated whereas “go-bi-da-too-la” has a varied consonant and vowel structure so it is an example of variegated babbling. Children typically begin babbling by producing reduplicated syllables and then gradually add the ability to produce variegated syllables as they become more skilled at producing sounds.