Soderstrom – message for parents

I think that the take-home message is that infant-directed speech or kind of the funny way that we talk to babies is definitely not bad. You know, sometimes there’s a message that gets out there that you shouldn’t talk baby talk to babies and I don’t think the literature supports that perspective. There’s a lot of good reason to believe that these characteristics and how we talk to babies are important. And there’s a robust literature supporting the idea that the more babies get in terms of language input, especially sort of that one-on-one kind of interactive experience, is tied to language development.  

So it does make a difference. But I always temper that a little bit with this knowledge that there are differences – there’s individual differences and there’s cultural differences in how we interact with babies and I would never want a mother to feel that you know, oh I must talk – I must engage with my baby all the time or I’m harming my baby. It’s just something like anything in parenting that you know, it’s good to interact with your baby, it’s good to turn the television off. You know, it’s good to read to your baby, but you don’t want to make parents feel like they’re – you know, they must be on all the time for their babies. People are real human beings. They live their lives and there’s – every family has its own style.