Although babies do not have the ability to speak during their first months of life, we know that even before developing this ability they already do it in their mind when they observe us, to become familiar with the correct movements to articulate. Therefore, talking to them from an early age helps improve their verbal development.
But the benefits of speaking to our children even before they do so are not limited to that, because according to a new study, Talking frequently with them from an early age helps boost the development of cognitive skills.
Made by the University of York and published in the magazine Developmental Psychology, this new study found that there was a link between children who heard large amounts of adult speech and their nonverbal skills, such as reasoning, numerical ability and awareness or knowledge of forms.
In Babies and more Decalogue to stimulate baby's languageTo reach this conclusion, audio recordings of up to 16 hours per day were analyzed over the course of three days, of 107 children aged two to four years, in which interactions with their parents and others were included To take care of them.
As part of the study, parents were asked to perform some specific activities with their children, such as drawing and copying some tasks, designed with the objective of test each child's cognitive skills.
It was found that there was a positive association between these skills and the amount of adult speech that children heard per day, based on both the number of words and the diversity of vocabulary. However, it is not known with certainty why this link is due and the researchers comment that more studies are needed to analyze it in depth.
As we have seen in previous studies, the activities that allow us to interact and begin to teach our children about language, such as speech, singing and reading, are highly beneficial not only to create a bond with our children, but also to help you develop your cognitive skills better.
