I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure, it’s not that simple.
For one, you might not have much to chat about with your baby, so doing baby talk might actually get in more language training.
But then baby talk is also very emotionally charged. So, it might help with emotional development, or simply make the baby pay attention for longer and therefore actually help the language development.
For one, you might not have much to chat about with your baby, so doing baby talk might actually get in more language training.
In a good environment babies should be exposed to plenty of language. There’s tribal societies which don’t talk to their kids until they start to talk themselves and those kids turn out fine by all metrics researchers could throw at them. What they do do is take them with them everywhere.
You do not need to capture a baby’s attention for them to sponge up information. They do pretty much nothing else no matter what you do.
What has been shown to be beneficial is to give them the opportunity to talk to their caregivers earlier, figures that language capability develops faster than the capability to make complex sounds, it’s the whole point behind baby sign: So they can tell you that no they aren’t hungry they want their teddy. Doesn’t benefit language skills, it does reduce frustration (you might figure), bonds to their caregiver, and benefits both party’s emotional states.
Thats all well thought out and such but anyone with more than one kid will tell you that nature has a huge hand in it. You could treat the children the same and they can learn wildly different rates and have diverging interests.
This idea the parents take most of the responsibility for the achievements of their children is absurd. Its just as absurd as a head coach being praised for a victory in sports.
You don’t praise the guard rails in bumper bowling for the score at the end, thats the bowler. The guard rails just kept some of the worst outcomes from happening.
Coaches do have quite a large impact on teams, they’re the ones who study the opponent, formulate strategies, and then translate that into a training regimen.
In so far as being a kid is playing sportsball the coach is primarily the genome, then with some distance culture (takes a village and everything), and then the parents. You can praise a parent for having the wherewithal to introduce their kid to spaced repetition software, you can’t praise them for the kid feeling inclined to learn six languages before the age of 14 that was all the genome spotting a niche, adapting a suitable individual to serve a role by making it excited.
Yeah I don’t mean to imply that coaches or parents have no affect, just that they are commonly overstated.
Unless you happen to be the coach of my cities football (us) team, then that coach is a psycho and is single handedly responsible for losing last playoffs.
I guess thats sort of like a bad parent who tries to force stuff on their kids.
This idea the parents take most of the responsibility for the achievements of their children is absurd.
There’s also the flip-side of that attitude. It sure must feel nice for parents to be able to congratulate themselves when their kid excels, but what about when their kid has a disability or a developmental impairment? Who is responsible then?
It’s easy to be a parent when your kid acts and responds the way you want them to. Parents of neurodivergent kids can go above and beyond for their children, yet despite that they’ll still be given dirty looks and treated like pariahs when their overstimulated child has a public meltdown.
Kids aren’t raw lumps of clay that parents can mold to perfect shape. The best any parent can do is guide them toward success.
I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure, it’s not that simple.
For one, you might not have much to chat about with your baby, so doing baby talk might actually get in more language training.
But then baby talk is also very emotionally charged. So, it might help with emotional development, or simply make the baby pay attention for longer and therefore actually help the language development.
Well, and then it also still depends on the baby. For example, this research suggests that babies with autism react differently to baby talk: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2022/toddlers-responses-to-baby-talk-linked-to-social-cognitive-language-abilities
In a good environment babies should be exposed to plenty of language. There’s tribal societies which don’t talk to their kids until they start to talk themselves and those kids turn out fine by all metrics researchers could throw at them. What they do do is take them with them everywhere.
You do not need to capture a baby’s attention for them to sponge up information. They do pretty much nothing else no matter what you do.
What has been shown to be beneficial is to give them the opportunity to talk to their caregivers earlier, figures that language capability develops faster than the capability to make complex sounds, it’s the whole point behind baby sign: So they can tell you that no they aren’t hungry they want their teddy. Doesn’t benefit language skills, it does reduce frustration (you might figure), bonds to their caregiver, and benefits both party’s emotional states.
Thats all well thought out and such but anyone with more than one kid will tell you that nature has a huge hand in it. You could treat the children the same and they can learn wildly different rates and have diverging interests.
This idea the parents take most of the responsibility for the achievements of their children is absurd. Its just as absurd as a head coach being praised for a victory in sports.
You don’t praise the guard rails in bumper bowling for the score at the end, thats the bowler. The guard rails just kept some of the worst outcomes from happening.
Coaches do have quite a large impact on teams, they’re the ones who study the opponent, formulate strategies, and then translate that into a training regimen.
In so far as being a kid is playing sportsball the coach is primarily the genome, then with some distance culture (takes a village and everything), and then the parents. You can praise a parent for having the wherewithal to introduce their kid to spaced repetition software, you can’t praise them for the kid feeling inclined to learn six languages before the age of 14 that was all the genome spotting a niche, adapting a suitable individual to serve a role by making it excited.
Yeah I don’t mean to imply that coaches or parents have no affect, just that they are commonly overstated.
Unless you happen to be the coach of my cities football (us) team, then that coach is a psycho and is single handedly responsible for losing last playoffs.
I guess thats sort of like a bad parent who tries to force stuff on their kids.
There’s also the flip-side of that attitude. It sure must feel nice for parents to be able to congratulate themselves when their kid excels, but what about when their kid has a disability or a developmental impairment? Who is responsible then?
It’s easy to be a parent when your kid acts and responds the way you want them to. Parents of neurodivergent kids can go above and beyond for their children, yet despite that they’ll still be given dirty looks and treated like pariahs when their overstimulated child has a public meltdown.
Kids aren’t raw lumps of clay that parents can mold to perfect shape. The best any parent can do is guide them toward success.