Why Baby Einstein can't teach your baby languages

In my last post, I described some of the benefits of speaking two or more languages. Those of us who are monolingual parents might be tempted to buy DVDs and CDs of songs and stories in other languages and play them for our infants. After all, infancy is when kids learn languages most easily, right?

Apparently, the DVDs and CDs would be a giant waste of money. Babies learn languages, all right, but apparently only from live people. So say the research findings of Lucia French, Ph.D., from the University of Rochester; Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, Ph.D., from New York University; Betty Hart, Ph.D., & Todd R. Risley, Ph.D.; and others.

These scientists have found that, although some DVDs, such as the Baby Einstein brand, present pictures of objects as babies hear sentences in the target language about those objects, babies are much more interested in speech that is accompanied by a human face than in disembodied, voice-over speech.

Also, experiment after experiment confirm that the responsiveness of a parent or other human to the baby's sound-making and early speech is the most crucial factor of all in language acquisition.

Most of us know instinctively to talk to, play and interact with, and respond to our babies. These normal parental behaviors provide the environment in which our children learn their mother tongue, as one's native language is aptly called. If we wish to bring more than one language to our babies, but we cannot speak another language ourselves, our only recourse is to arrange playtime (or other interactive time) with someone who does speak that language.

These findings also disprove the rather common belief that children can get language skills in their native language from TV, that cheapest of “babysitters.” Instead of parking a baby in front of a TV while the parent makes a meal, for example, the baby would be far better off strapped into a front pack, backpack, or car seat while the parent cooks—and chats with, and responds to, the baby.

(If you want to read more about bringing rich language experiences to your baby, check out the linked article about Lucia French, above, for some clear, practical tips.)

Another point indicated by the research is that, for the first few years of life, one important criterion for judging a day care situation (day care center, nursery school, baby-sitter, whatever) is how much talk occurs between caregivers and children. This is one reason why a low caregiver-to-child ratio is important.

There can be a huge disparity in amount of speech heard by children in various homes and child care arrangements—with some kids hearing 3 million words a year and others hearing 11 million words per year. Children in language-rich homes can achieve better vocabularies by age 3 than the parents in language-depressed homes have!

To sum up:

• Babies learn languages from other humans. Not TV. Not CDs or DVDs.

• One important factor in babies learning language is how much those humans talk to him or her.

• The most important factor in babies learning language is the humans responding to his or her babbling and early words.

By the way, there is an entire chapter on this in the 2009 book Nurture Shock: Thinking About Children, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. I haven't read this book yet but would love to! Most of the reviews are glowing.