I’m not sure if it’s the mom in me or the teacher in me, but I absolutely cringe at the sound of baby talk.
When I say “baby talk” I’m not referring to high-pitched sweet tones we use when talking to a baby or toddler. I’m talking about purposely using wrong sounds and pronouns because we think it is cute. There is absolutely nothing cute about teaching a child how to speak incorrectly.
As an early childhood teacher, I’ve seen many students that are so confused because what they learned at home, and what they are learning in school contradict each other.
One may think it’s cute to count “one, two, free, four” when talking to a child. I promise, it is not cute in a first grade classroom. Children learn to speak by listening to the people that interact with them. So why in the world would we speak incorrectly, on purpose, it absolutely blows my mind. To help a child that is pronouncing something incorrectly, be sure not to correct them or scold them. They are still learning. What you can do however is to model it correctly. So if a child counted out four object “one, two, free, four,” you could reply by saying “Yes! one, two, three, four.” It’s that simple. I hate when the opposite happens and the adults also start saying “free” instead of “three.” That’s where the damage takes place and skills will have to be unlearned later.
Language development is hard enough on its own, don’t burden your child with the task of also having to unlearn it.
I’ve even noticed on some shows my toddler has watched that characters may use the “wr” sound for the “ir” sound, such as saying fwrst instead of first; or Heaven help me, using “w’s” instead of “r’s” such as “The wed wacecar was fast.”
Maybe people think that kids just grow out of talking like this. They don’t. They have to break all those bad habits, while learning the correct ways.
I don’t believe any parent has purposely tried to sabotage their child’s language development, but I do believe that many parents are doing just that. I even catch myself sometimes; and again I don’t acknowledge my own error, or my child’s, I just repeated correctly.
The proper form of baby talk is highly encouraged, especially in birth to 12 months. By adding emotion, tone, and exaggerated vowel sounds to our speech around babies, they are better able to learn the language. But in no way, should we be speaking incorrectly to the little ones that are soaking up everything we say.
Thank you so much for reading my post. How do you feel about “baby talk?”
Lana says
I am confused about the pronunciation of “furst” and “first” sounding different in some way. To me they sound exactly the same. Am I saying “first” incorrectly, or do you live in a region where people speak with a different accent, perhaps? I’m in the pacific northwest.
Dana says
I guess since burst and first sound the same that wasn’t a very good example, hhhmmm I’ll have to figure out how I can phonetically spell it
Tanya says
Hi Dana,
I am a former speech-language pathologist and couldn’t agree with you more! I have even witnessed this type of talk from kindergarten teachers. I walked into a classroom and heard the teacher saying “Mrs Smith is talking right now, it’s time to listen”. I cringed. Why is it so hard to say “I am talking right now”. These kids were 5 years old.
I know the pronunciation you are talking about when you say “furst”. Maybe writing it as “fawst” would be a better way of trying to show the pronunciation you are talking about.
I have written an in depth article on the pros and cons of baby talk for language development. Here’s the link if you would like to check it out! https://seemeandliz.com/what-is-motherese