News

Babies learn words before they are one

A new study suggests that children younger than a year old can learn certain words for things that are not a regular part of their daily lives.

The findings, based on research by Dr Graham Schafer of Reading University School of Psychology, disputes the widespread belief amongst parents, teachers and researchers who think learning specific words does not begin until well into the second year.

The study, which is published in the February issue of Child Development, studied 52 nine month old babies.

Parents were asked to use 12 board books and a set of 48 picture cards depicting common objects like keys, apples, fish, and chairs in simple games with their children four times a week for up to 10 minutes a session.

The games were designed to build on the kind of routines parents already used in the home: naming and pointing, sorting, finding the odd one out. No reading was required for either parents or children.

After three months, the children, now one year old, received a test of word understanding in which they were shown pairs of pictures and asked to look at one of them based on what the investigator said.

For instance, the investigator might say: “Fish, fish! Look at the fish!” Dr. Schafer then measured whether the child looked at the correct picture.

Children who had been through the training with their parents looked at the correct picture, while a control group of untrained children did not.

“This was notable because in the test, the pictures, voices and the context were all new to the children,” said Dr. Schafer.

“We can conclude that the children who had taken part in the games with their parents had learned these particular words, and not in a way linked to a special context.”

Dr Schafer says parents should talk to their children even more than they already do. He says that parents should "be aware that there may be no ‘lower limit’ to the age at which their children are able to learn new words.”

Where to next?

• Does your baby have excellent vocabulary? Share your views in Discuss, Debate and Deliberate