In my opinion baby talk can delay speech and sometimes cause your child to have speech impediments. When you talk to your baby, they are learning a language. If you miss pronounce words you are teaching them wrong. Imagine you are learning a new language and you decide to buy a CD that teaches you the language. The CD starts and you listen and repeat what you are being taught. Only it is wrong and you have no idea.You go to the country where that language is spoken and try to use what you have learned to communicate with the people in that country. No one understands you. You want desperately to communicate your feelings and desires and you become very frustrated. Consider this when you talk to your child. They need to be taught correctly. They want desperately to communicate with you. So pronounce your words correctly and clearly so your child can hear you.
I have seen a number of examples with my kids and other peoples kids where there has been baby talk and no baby talk and seen the outcome. I am convinced it plays a factor in your childs developement and their ability to communicate.
I also believe it is a good idea, as your child learns to talk and gets a little practice, to correct them if they say a word or letter incorrectly. Have them slowly repeat the word or letter sound after you. This will help them to not make a habit out of saying the word or letter sound incorrectly.
What are your thoughts? Agree? dissagree? Let me know
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agreee. mainly because listening to adults talk like babies is easily the most annoying thing in the world.
ReplyDeleteagree!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. I have nine children and the all talk well except my last child, who has problems with r's. Reason being some of his older siblings would imitate him instead of saying things they way they are suppose to be said. He is 7 and says his r's like l's... I have been trying to work with him and things are getting better, but it will be a long time before it comes easy to him.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. And I echo Rachel's sentiment: adults talking baby talk is the so annoying. I think it's insane when parents who have preschool age children still refer to things as "cuppy" or "milky" or "wawa" (water). It just reinforces it with the child. I used to work with a woman whose only son was 9 - he STILL referred to things by the names he called them as a toddler, because his mom still referred to them that way. It was beyond annoying, it was starting to just get creepy since the kid was almost as tall as I am!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is 7, and I always talked to her in a normal voice and never used cutesy nicknames for toys or objects. She speaks like an adult and has always had people commenting on how well she speaks and how much she can understand. My son...he's 6- we still have to remind him not to use a baby voice sometimes, because he reverts to a babylike voice when he's whiny, but he doesn't use baby words. My stepdaughter is 6 and her mom treats her like she is still a toddler (talking baby talk, carrying her, etc), so we are constantly having to remind her to speak like a big girl and not say things like "drinky." It's a very hard habit to break in a child, especially when adults around them are still reinforcing it!
Ok -climbing off my soapbox now. :-)
Rachel I totally agree. Debbie wow 9 kids you have your own little test group there and you can speak from lots of experience thanks for the feedback.Brandi I was laughing reading your comments I enjoyed reading it and agree. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteTotally agree! I actually used to talk in the third person with my daughter, but not in a 'baby' sort of way. Just so she could understand things better. The result is now a 2 1/2 year old that talks more like a 4 year old! We never use baby words. One day, I sent her in the shower with daddy because she was filthy and needed a quick rinse. She said, 'What does Daddy have?'. Oh, we... just started laughing... 'A penis', I replied. And, well, she already knew about vaginas because we were in the process of planning a homebirth so I had to educate her on all the female anatomy. One day soon after, at daycare, she was explaining to her teachers that girls have vaginas and boys have penises! They were all very impressed :)
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