Talking to an infant can affect a child’s speech and vocabulary – study
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The communication of an adult with a child at an early age can influence the formation of his brain structure. Scientists from the University of East Anglia came to this conclusion, reports The Guardian. With the help of children’s vests, which were worn on the participants of the study, scientists recorded the speech of 87 children at 6 months and 76 children who are about 2.5 years old. As a result, they received 6,208 hours of vocalization recordings. Photo: Vadymvdrobot/Depositphotos After studying sound recordings, scientists found that children with whom their parents talked more made more sounds. Then the scientists invited 84 children of various ages to the hospital, where the study participants fell asleep in a special quiet room. “When the children fell asleep, we woke them up, put them in a wheelchair and took them to the MRI room to measure the level of myelin in their brains,” says study author Professor John Spencer. Myelin is a substance that surrounds the nerve endings of cells and makes the signals between them more effective. During the formation of children’s brains, the amount of this substance increases. The researchers found that 2-year-old children with whom adults communicated had more myelin in their brains. At the same time, the concentration of myelin is lower in the six-month-old children with whom the parents spoke. Photo: Dmyrto_Z/Depositphotos According to the author of the study, it depends on the stage of brain development. “When a baby is 6 months old, getting more information is good for him. This is when the brain is developing rapidly and the baby is making new neural connections. Communication can help extend this period of development,” said John Spencer. The brain of children who are about 2.5 years old is in a different state. “Their brain begins to reduce some cell growth, forming specific connections. During this period, myelin begins to accumulate, and conversations with parents and new information from them help to structure it,” the doctor added. According to scientists, the study proves that talking to a baby at an early age can affect the child’s speech and vocabulary in the future. At the same time, Saloni Krishnan, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of London, who was not involved in the study, noted that the results do not yet prove that more communication affects the concentration of myelin in the brain. According to him, further studies are needed to confirm or deny the connection. Earlier we talked about 11 tips on how to talk to young children. Read also: “Tired of children”: the police explained why a 5-month-old baby was taken from its mother in Kyiv
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