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Baby talk often gets a bad reputation as immature and holding back a child’s development, but a recent study published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research in Canada found that this overly dramatic style of speech actually is beneficial in the development of language in the child’s brain, but more interestingly with this research they found that this effect increases with the age of the child rather than being less effective as the baby grows up. (Polka et al.) Teachers can use this knowledge to create more engaging lessons using their voice to create wonder and excitement.
This finding isn’t actually all that surprising when taking into account the highly exaggerated vocal styles used in most children’s and even teenager’s TV shows. From the higher pitched and almost sing-songy prosody of young children’s shows to the powerful superhero catchphrases and dramatic monologues of teen programming, voice has always been an important aspect to keeping a young person’s attention. This research shows that “baby talk” is just the beginning of this effect on the human brain, and it doesn’t go away, and in fact strengthens in older children, teens, and perhaps even adults.
New Research on Baby Talk
Researchers out of McGill University ran an experiment with two cohorts of infants, the first group aged 4-6 months, and the second cohort ranging from 6-8 months. The infants were sat on a caregiver’s lap in front of a screen. When the infants looked at the screen, a sound would play. Some heard a vocal tone similar to an adult’s voice while others heard a voice more similar to a child’s voice with higher pitch and more exaggerated vowel sounds.
The researchers found that the older the child was, the more they preferred the voice that was similar to their own in pitch over the more reserved adult voice style. While the younger cohort showed very little preference between the tones, the older children showed a strong preference for the higher pitched and exaggerated vowel sounds.
The researchers suggested that the results pointed to infants being able to recognize the infant-like sounds as speech more easily because it is similar to noises that they can create themselves making it “easier to process and encode” in their brains. The exact reason why children have this preference is hard to confirm, but this study along with previous research suggests that higher and varying pitch in a voice with emotional prosody is most successful at engaging attention in the human brain, and that isn’t just for babies.
Research on adults has shown that an emotional voice “implicitly guides visual attention to faces”, especially when the facial expression matches the emotional tone in the voice. (Rigoulot and Pell) In the study, researchers played a video with a face using an emotionally inflected voice saying a nonsensical phrase while tracking where the participants looked. The emotional content of the voice led to participants looking longer and having more sustained attention. Humans are naturally drawn to highly emotional speech and are more likely to pay attention to it compared with more reserved auditory stimuli.
Teacher Takeaways for Engaging Lessons
Despite the constant rhetoric about dwindling attention spans, children seem to be able to focus and pay attention to TV shows for hours on end. That even goes for students with attentional issues like students with ADHD. Partially, this is because of all the bright visuals, the rapid pace, and the memorable characters, but the dramatic and emotional voices the characters use are also a crucial aspect as this research shows.
While teachers are not actors or clowns meant to dance and entertain their students, mindfully utilizing a more emotionally charged voice can make students listen in more carefully and help make engaging lessons for students.
1: Build engaging lessons through vivid and emotion filled description.
Especially with younger students, the way a teacher describes something can make a vast difference in how they perceive it. If a teacher states that today the class will be starting a new story called the Epic of Gilgamesh, the students will probably respond with a groan and a chorus of “do we have to?”
However, if the teacher instead introduces the lesson by saying that today they’re going to be reading the oldest story that humans have discovered using a voice full of mystery, the students are far more likely to have their interest piqued. While jaded older students may be harder to impress, the research shows that even if they don’t show it, the more emotionally charged description will be more likely to grab their interest.
2: Exaggerate even sad emotions to help growing minds be more empathetic.
This emotional use of voice doesn’t only apply to positive emotions. A teacher can also exaggerate their sadness or disappointment to help students to understand emotional contexts better. Young people, especially those with ASD, sometimes struggle to understand the emotional nuances and how they affect social situations. If the teacher exaggerates how they’re feeling, it gives clearer signals to the student and communicates much more clearly than expecting them to understand.
For example, a student might not understand how their distracting behavior makes the teacher feel ignored and not valued. Instead of keeping a “professional tone” and just expecting the student to understand that ignoring the teacher hurts their feelings, the teacher could exaggerate their hurt feelings to the student in a private conversation.
Even if a teacher is easily able to brush off this type of behavior after years of experience, when talking to the student in private, saying something like “that really hurt my feelings and made me feel bad” along with a hurt expression will help the student to see the effects of their actions more clearly through the more obvious auditory and visual emotional expression.
3: Remember that excitement is infectious in engaging lessons.
Everyone loves to listen to someone who is passionate about what they’re talking about. Even though it may be the hundredth time the teacher has taught something, bringing excitement about the topic will be infectious to the students. Teachers should try to not just transfer content into students’ heads, but also transfer their passion for the subject and learning in general with their engaging lessons. Every day shouldn’t be a fake smile filled performance, but if the teacher can model a positive, upbeat attitude for their students, they are going to be more likely to keep students’ spirits up as well.
Everyone can’t be super energetic and upbeat all of the time, but if most days are full of positivity, when the teacher is truly having a bad day, the students will be better able to realize the difference and act more solemnly. Happy and exciting lessons aren’t the only engaging lessons. Teachers should be up front about how they’re feeling and model that it is ok to have a bad day.
As mentioned before, modeling more exaggerated emotions isn’t just for the positive ones. Sending clear signals such as a sad face or a downtrodden voice can help students understand that they need to be a little calmer and serious that day and help them realize that their teacher is a person who has a whole range of emotions.
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References
Polka, Linda, et al. “Setting the Stage for Speech Production: Infants Prefer Listening to Speech Sounds with Infant Vocal Resonances.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2021, pp. 1–12., https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_jslhr-21-00412.
Rigoulot, Simon, and Marc D. Pell. “Seeing Emotion with Your Ears: Emotional Prosody Implicitly Guides Visual Attention to Faces.” PLoS ONE, vol. 7, no. 1, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030740.
