Jj is for Jottings 163.  Language Development and Singing to Babies.

We’ll now have a look at the relationship between language development and singing to babies.  This ties in closely with the previous article on the connection between literacy and music.  If you haven’t read it, I advise you to, since it creates a more rounded picture than this article on its own.

Before you take fright at the idea of singing, you will find that there is much value in rhythmic speech, as you will see when you read on.  And you could use sung recordings as alternative to singing yourself. But it’s much quicker and easier to sing yourself, if you can.  And remember, your audience – your baby – won’t be critical.  And they would prefer the known and loved voice of a parent.

HOW DO BABIES LEARN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE?

Until recently, people thought that infants learn small sound elements – phonetic information – and add them together to make words.  (The phonetic information is then represented by the alphabet for the purposes of reading and writing.)  In order to discover whether this was really the case, neuroscientists did a study at the University of Cambridge.  They recorded the brain activity of 50 infants at 4, 7 and 11 months old as the infants watched a video of a primary school teacher singing 18 nursery rhymes.

The team used special algorithms to interpret how the infants were encoding this information in the brain.  They found that phonetic encoding in babies developed gradually over the first year of life. The individual sounds of speech were not processed reliably until around 7 months.  Despite this, most infants can recognise some familiar words.  From 7 months, individual speech sounds are added very slowly – too slowly to explain early language development.

You might also want to refer to this article on the baby stage of raising a reader part 1: The Baby.

The Missing Link.

The scientists concluded that speech rhythm information actually underpins the development of a well-functioning language system. Infants use the rhythmic information like a scaffold or skeleton to hang phonetic (sound) information on to.  They might learn, for example, that the rhythm pattern of English words is usually strong-weak, as in “Mummy” or “Daddy”, with the stress on the first syllable.  They can then use this rhythm pattern to guess where one word ends and another begins when listening to normal speech.

Rhythm is a universal aspect of every language, and all babies hear a beat structure with a strong syllable twice a second. And adults are biologically programmed to emphasise this when speaking to babies.

DYSLEXIA AND DEVELOPMENTAL LANGUAGE DISORDER.

Part of the reason for this study was to investigate how language relates to dyslexia and developmental language disorder.  The results suggest that dyslexia and developmental language disorder may be associated with faulty rhythm perception rather than difficulties with processing phonetic information.

I have studiously avoided mentioning dyslexia in these posts so far, because the very word means different things to different people, and the theories differ according to these definitions.  But clearly rhythm and stress patterns are now proven to be important aspects of sound and language learning, and may well underpin some, if not all, instances of dyslexia.

Here is some further information on the link between oral language and written language.

SINGING TO BABIES.

The result of this new research is that rhythm and stress patterns are far more important for learning language than previous thinking could explain.  And singing to babies fits the bill perfectly.  Singing involves speech sounds, rhythm, different stress patterns, and changes in pitch.  (Pitch refers to how high or low the voice goes.)

Consider the alphabet song, which is discussed in detail in Aa is for Alpacas.  The rise and fall of pitch in the song, coupled with the rhythm, makes it much easier for a child to learn than just reciting the alphabet.  The same applies to nursery rhymes and other rhymes which can be recited in a sing song way to enhance learning.  There is much more variation in pitch, rhythm and stress in music than there is in ordinary spoken sentences.

Nursery Rhymes Are Out Of Fashion.

I have noticed that many children do not know nursery rhymes these days.  I don’t know if it’s because the parents think they are just nonsense. Actually many of them were political comments of the era in which they originated.  But, even if they sound like nonsense, they are still an excellent vehicle to enhance learning speech and language skills.  And anyway, small children love nonsense.

So nursery rhymes need to come back into fashion.

And Then There Are The Brain Hemispheres.

And there is a further element, which was not mentioned in this study.  Language and words are interpreted in the left hemisphere of the brain.  Music and sounds are interpreted in the right hemisphere.  So, adding music to what would otherwise be just language, engages both hemispheres of the brain, which also enhances learning.

So the message is: Sing and talk to your babies as much as possible to enhance their language development.  The way in which we are naturally programmed to talk to babies will provide some of the advantages of singing to them.  That is, greater variations in stress patterns and pitch, coupled with more rhythmic speech.  But singing is even better.

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