Mothers' Voice Can Boost Babies' Social Skills

By Dr. Magdy Badran

Talking with your baby and engaging in conversations can be a way to foster early social interactions and even later learning.

Voice is one of the most important social communication cues. Babies begin learning patterns of language even before they are born.

The Baby Recognizes his Mother Voice

Evidence suggests that the auditory system starts forming at the 18th week of pregnancy and continues to develop until the baby is between 5 and 6 months of age.

Around week 25 or 26, babies in the womb respond to voices and noise. Recordings taken in the uterus reveal that noises from outside of the womb are muted by about half.

The most significant sound your baby hears in the womb is the voice of the mother.

Fetal Learning

Newborn babies can recognize songs played to them while in the womb. Newborns already familiarized themselves with sounds of their parent’s native language.

Babies at birth they can distinguish between the sound of their native language and a foreign language, suggesting that moms are their babies' first language teachers.

Mother birds may teach their chicks to sing before they hatch. The young of red-backed fairy-wrens emerge from their eggs mimicking mom’s tune.

Mom’s Voice is Soothing

A mother’s voice can soothe a child in stressful situations, reducing levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, and increasing levels of oxytocin, the social bonding hormone.

It is important for mothers to interact with their premature babies when they visit them in intensive care units as babies born prematurely often suffer from hearing and language problems.

The sound centers in the babies' brains grew more quickly when they heard recordings of their mothers’ voices and heartbeats rather than the normal calm of intensive care units.

Preterm infants are hospitalized in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and are precociously separated from their mothers.

Although developmental care interventions are meant to facilitate mother-infant bonding, physical contact is not always possible. Maternal voice exposure has been proposed as a way to foster maternal closeness and support postnatal bonding.

[caption id="attachment_56819" align="aligncenter" width="723"] Mother holding her baby[/caption]

Mother's voice on the phone can work the same soothing magic as when she is there to give her offspring a comforting cuddle.

Hearing mother down the line produces the same stress-busting effect as physical contacts such as a hug or a loving arm around the shoulder.

Mothers' calls can release similar levels of the social bonding hormone oxytocin in children as when they were in close proximity.

Oxytocin has anti-anxiety and anti-depressive properties and may help protect against postnatal depression.

Oxytocin is a powerful hormone that can cause bonding between children and their mothers, have powerful anti-inflammatory and pain relief properties, reduce stress and anxiety and work as an antidepressant.

Babies Are Born Social

Your baby is a born charmer. And there's a lot you can do to help build his social skills.

Even in the first few weeks of life, infants prefer the sight of a human face over that of any other object. Your baby will go through many changes in terms of social and emotional development during the first year of life.

Each month, your baby will reach social milestones such as becoming interested in conversation, breaking into their first social smile, developing ways to communicate with you and imitating others.

Long before your baby says his first word, he's telling you what he needs -- with his cries, coos, gurgles, flailing fists, smiles, and grimaces. If you coo or smile back at him in the early months, he will trust you you'll teach him that the world is a friendly and happy place.

Infants love big kids and they like to be introduced to older kids. Big sibs provide a constant source of inspiration for milestones like talking, eating and walking and their silly sense of humor also appeals to babies.

If your infant is a firstborn, then a cousin, a neighbor’s kid or a family friend may have a similar effect.

Singing is a Fun Way to Bond

Parents should sing to their children every day to avoid language problems developing in later life.

Singing to babies and infants before they learn to speak, is an essential precursor to later educational success and emotional wellbeing. The song is a special type of speech; it carries the 'signature' melodies and inflections of a mother tongue, preparing a child's ear, voice, and brain for language.

Traditional songs aid a child's ability to think in words. Growing numbers of children enter nursery and school with inadequate language and communication skills, often because their parents have not helped them develop communication skills.

Singing to and, later, with a child is the most effective way to transform their ability to communicate.

[caption id="attachment_56820" align="aligncenter" width="680"] Mother singing to her baby[/caption]

Mom’s Voice Therapeutic Role

Mother’s voice has quick access to so many different brain systems. Brain regions that respond more strongly to the mother’s voice extend beyond auditory areas to include those involved in emotion and reward processing, social functions, detection of what is personally relevant and face recognition.

Many of our social, language and emotional processes are learned by listening to our mom’s voice.

Decades of research have shown that children prefer their mother’s voices. In one classic study, 1-day-old babies sucked harder on a pacifier when they heard the sound of their mom’s voice, as opposed to the voices of other women.

Hearing the mother’s voice can be an important source of emotional comfort to children.

Children whose brains showed a stronger degree of connection between all these regions when hearing their mom’s voice also had the strongest social communication ability.

Talk a Lot to Your Baby to Boost his Intelligence

Parents who frequently talk to toddlers not only help improve their child’s vocabulary, but they also give nonverbal abilities like reasoning and numerical understanding a boost.

Children start to recognize their names by around four and a half months, so even a young baby may pay more attention if you mention him in conversation.

By the time they turn 1, most babies know about 50 words. Simple nouns that refer to objects or people, such as dog and mama, are usually the first words they learn, followed within the next several months by a few verbs, like hug and kiss, and a nascent understanding of the way words work together in sentences.

Then, at 18 to 21 months, children suddenly launch into what experts call a "language explosion," learning an average of nine new words a day, and they also begin to understand how word order affects meaning. Once this happens, kids start to figure out not just that you're talking about them but what you're saying.

Tune into Your Child

Turn off distractions, put your phone on silent, turn off the TV and computer and just ‘be present’ to talk to your child. When your baby tries to talk back to you, don't interrupt or look away.

Your child will also learn to talk by watching how you communicate with others. Any time you’re with your child is a good opportunity to talk.

He needs to know you care about listening to him. Limit how much TV he sees and hears. Too much can stunt language growth. Besides, you’re more fun than the voice on the screen.

Listen to what your child is trying to communicate. Use natural pauses. Your baby will eventually fill in these pauses when his language develops.

This also teaches him ‘give and take’ in a conversation. Know when to stop.

If your child starts to look tired or restless or gets grumpy, don’t force him to keep listening. Pick another time when you can tell he’s ready for a chat.

Be interesting, notice what your child is paying attention to and talk about that.

Talk to your child about things he’s likely to be interested in. Use lots of expressions to make your conversation interesting and engaging. If you use complex words, explain them and build on them by using lots of descriptive words.

Expand your conversations. When talking, speak slowly and start stressing certain words.

Read to your child every day, especially colorful picture books and magazines. Name the pictures you see and praise your baby when he babbles along with you as you read.