Researchers from the Hebrew University and their partners around the world have discovered that parents repeat words more often when talking to young babies, and use a more varied vocabulary as the children get older
New research reveals how parents naturally adapt their speech patterns to their children's level of linguistic knowledge. The study shows that parents use less unnecessary language with older children, and highlights the impact of the perception of linguistic abilities on communication. The findings offer valuable insights into our understanding of language development.
A new study by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Edinburgh has discovered how parents naturally adapt their speech patterns to their children's level of linguistic knowledge. The research, led by Dr. Shira Tal from the University of Edinburgh and the Hebrew University, alongside Professor Eitan Grossman from the Department of Linguistics, and Professor Inbal Arnon from the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University, provides new insights into the dynamics of infant-directed speech (IDS) and its role in language development.
The study examines whether speakers use less unnecessary language with more skilled interlocutors, with an emphasis on speech aimed at babies. Both the communicative effectiveness framework and the language development literature suggest that speech directed at young infants should be more redundant than speech directed at older infants. To check this, the researchers used an innovative method by quantifying the redundancy in speech aimed at babies using the entropy rate - an information-theoretic measure that reflects the average degree of repetition in speech.
"Infant-directed speech is often described as repetitive, but existing research has mostly examined the linguistic 'components' separately. For example, parents are known to repeat words more often when talking to young babies, and use more varied vocabulary as the children get older. In our study, we provided a new and holistic index of unnecessary speech aimed at children, to check how unnecessary it is in general," explained Dr. Shira Tal. "The idea was to see if we use more unnecessary speech with young babies, who are in the early stages of language learning, and allow ourselves to be less unnecessary as they get older and more skilled." The study used recordings of children's speech of different ages to compare the entropy rates of child-directed speech over time. The results showed that parents do use less unnecessary speech when they talk to older children, which demonstrates that the perception of the conversation partner's skill significantly affects the redundancy.
Professor Eitan Grossman emphasized the importance of the findings: "The developmental decrease in redundancy does not only reflect a decrease in linguistic repetitions. We found that it is also affected by a decrease in the repetition of multi-word word sequences. This highlights the importance of multi-word sequences in early language learning.”
The research findings are particularly relevant to understanding the way in which natural linguistic input adapts itself to the child's response and his developing linguistic abilities. By using the entropy rate as a measure, the researchers were able to capture the subtleties of the development of speech patterns in relation to child development, and offer valuable insights for theoretical and practical applications in language acquisition research.
Professor Inbal Arnon emphasized the theoretical implications: "These findings demonstrate that babies are exposed to language that fits the way we perceive them, similar to the way we adapt our language to different people we talk to. It also adds a piece to the mix of uncovering the special characteristics of the input from which children learn their first language.”
According to the researchers, this study represents a significant advance in understanding language acquisition and the adaptive nature of human communication.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
Comments
There is what is known as shared parenting. I asked the image bank for a picture of people talking to babies, and this one stood out, so I decided to use it.
I just didn't understand how the babies got into the picture? 2 men gave birth to 2 babies? Kudos to them, it's really not easy to carry twins in the womb and give birth to them while risking their lives, but who cares? In the name of equality and gender, you can pay a woman in black from a third world country to risk her life to give birth to children, who will forever be motherless.
You can continue the progressive line. You only work on yourself
From experience in the field as a communication clinician who works with children who struggle to acquire the first words, the practical benefit from the overall intuitive conclusions presented in the findings is connected precisely to the attitude of the parents when the child experiences difficulties. Many times parents of a non-verbal child with significant difficulties (for example, a cognitive disability) ask if we think he understands any of this at all. A small baby does not understand and learns through a lot of exposure, adjustment and repetition, and it is difficult to remember that if the child's name is found, the language has to match the name, with a lot of repetition, repetition and adaptation of expressions even if he looks like a 3 year old
I have nothing to comment on the rather trivial conclusions of the research presented in the article. It turns out that what is known to every average parent, "science" as it is presented in the article above sees itself as having the right to "discover" as if it were a revolutionary finding. It's quite outrageous to think that public money is poured on these trifles, but we're already used to it, it happens all over the world.
What caught my eye is precisely the picture that appears above in the article. And to that I say - hello, sorry - the picture is out of place, and I really don't like the message that is inserted through it, by insinuation.
Simply put, ALF - I'm missing the mother's name, instead of the second man (and you decide which of the years is unnecessary); It is the mother who gave birth to the child, and also talks to the child, usually no less and actually more than the father. And BT - it does sound old-fashioned and unfashionable and progressive and progressive and no and no and no, and of course it is "dark" and "belonging to the Middle Ages" and primitive and horribly chauvinist. But - and this is a matter of simple fact and common sense: "Parents" is first of all a man and a woman who make a child together. There is further upbringing and education, but it starts with a man and a woman making a child, not a man with a man, not a man separate from a woman who is a womb for hire for a child to be taken from her as part of modern organ trafficking, and not a woman with a woman who may be a beloved partner but not really a mother who did not conceive And she did not feel the child in her womb and did not give birth to the child, and in the case of separation from the woman giving birth (- a not uncommon event, in itself) she will not have a presence of any kind in the child's life. "Parents" - and this is not what the above image conveys to us - parents are first of all father and mother, and only then and if at all everything that pretends, or disguises itself or pushes itself to know about this matter of parenting, under a heavy cover of artillery and media pyrotechnics , academically and politically, which tries with all its might to be very advanced and progressive, and already far beyond the political correctness required by the new culture of lies, which does not want and no longer knows how to call things by their real name.
Yes, a man and a woman make a child, that's the rule, and they are first of all the "parents", according to the news, but that picture tells a completely different story, because there it is precisely father and father, and as if to say: that's the rule, and that's the truth.
The truth is that I have no patience and tolerance towards the homosexual or unisex consciousness engineering, and for me enough is enough with the cult of this imaginary pseudo-scientific artifact called "gender", as if everything about man and woman and what is in between is a matter of "construction" with or without social convention, and as if there is no reality An objective that determines essential facts in the foundation and in the construction of things. We have already seen a particularly stupid Sara (Michali, a failed politician and MK who is facing the end of her career) for whom everything was a matter of construction, and tried to engineer our minds (=artificial "construction") through language distortions (including pearls in the style of "kidnapped and kidnapped") , and with her huge ego she saw this as the main thing, "Idle" often ignored reality, underestimated facts and logic and in fact caused a significant part of the impact of the political and security disaster in which we are today and will be found in the future with her delusional behavior.
I have been reading your articles for many years, and welcome the existence of this newspaper. But unfortunately, I often come across this section of the Hindu experience of consciousness, in all kinds of contexts. In journalism (scientifically!) you must present messages, even when they are purely visual - of true value, not products of ideology or personal beliefs and certainly not a false imagination. You are obligated to this.