New study suggests babies don’t learn to talk just from hearing sounds they’re lip-readers, too.
It happens during that magical stage when a baby is babbling slowly changes from gibberish into syllables and ultimately into that first “mama” or “dada.”
Florida scientists showed that starting approximately age 6 months; babies begin changing from the intent eye gaze of early infancy to observing mouths and its shapes when people talk to them. One time they master the lip movements, they apparently shift back to look you in the eye again.
The research offers more evidence that quality face-time with your baby is very important for speech development more than, say, turning on the latest baby DVD.
It appears in this week’s subject of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
