By 12 months, babies understand about 50 words (Fenson et al., 1994) and by age 6 a typically developing child knows between 9,000 and 14,000 words!! That's learning about 9 words a day on average! Linguist Stephen Pinker called them 'lexical vacuum...
Ever wondered why we can identify our own baby's cry amongst others? Some fascinating research I've been reading about at uni this month has a theory that babies' cries are like a little melody, each with its own melodic arc.
German babies cry with...
Far from being confounded by the slew of sounds they hear from birth (and even before), babies are slowly and carefully piecing together evidence of how speaking works, what it's for, how it feels physically and emotionally, what all these sounds mean,...
Yes, Babel Babies is a multilingual programme, but that's not to say that children can learn infinite languages simultaneously, or that a smattering of lots of languages is enough if there isn't at least one language learned to an age-appropriate...
There is so much confusion around mixing languages, and it worries me that parents and children are often left feeling ashamed of this very natural, normal, and creative by-product of bilingualism.
Mixing languages is a stage in the process of language...
I often hear people saying 'the earlier the better' when it comes to learning languages. But it's a more complex issue that needs some unpacking, rather than a universally applicable statement of fact.
A really important thing to consider when thinking...
Do conversations with toddlers work? This is a headline we spotted today. We sometimes get asked why we bother talking to children under 2, because they can’t have a conversation (the implication being they can’t understand).
Well, they can...
On the eve of the Babel Boy's birthday, Cate reflects on how being a part of the little language revolution (whether he wants to or not!) has shaped his outlook as he reaches his 8th year.
When he was born, I didn't know if I was going to speak English...
When we saw the Black & White Book Project on instagram was from Bristol, we just had to find out more about these locally-produced books for babies and their educational value from designer Ruth...
Ciao Ruth, we recently spotted you on Instagram...
