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Mum 1

Now that he's a month old we're definitely noticing more of those different kinds of responses. The happy, the frustrated, the concentrating.

Cristina (SLT)

At first, your baby is born ready to learn any language in the world but over time they become more and more tuned in to the language or languages that they hear in their home.

Mum 2

If he hears one of us who, we haven't been there and then we come into his sort of field of vision he'll look towards our voice and know that we're there. I think previously I was just food but now I'm a person as well.

Cristina

Your baby really is listening to you, most importantly they really love to listen to you speak to them.

Mum 1

Do you see mummy? Yes.

Trish (Health Visitor)

I'm going to get you to try parentese which is speaking to your baby in a high pitched, sing-song voice.

Cristina

Parentese is a really important helping hand in your child's speech and language development. Exaggerating the patterns and rhythms and melody of speech helps your child spot the patterns of sounds that they hear.

Trish

So we're just going to do a wee activity with the wee one now. We're just going to put him on the mat and then if you get pretty close to him, maybe about 30 centimetres away. When you're speaking to him if you speak to him in a kind of lilting voice.They respond better to that.

Mum 1

Hi darling, you can see mumma can't you? And Mummy! Good boy!

Cristina

When your tone is warm and soft this can serve to calm your baby and lower their heart rate.

Mum 1

Are you responding to us?

Cristina

When your baby hears parentese, the parts of the brain involved in processing speech and language are activated. These are the temporal and the frontal lobes of the brain.

Mum 1

We've noticed he's holding our gaze a bit more, he's looking towards sound and light and different things like that.

Cristina

Your baby is beginning to spot recurring patterns that they hear in the speech around them and this will help them to recognise words.