The simple gesture of slowing down, making eye contact, and speaking to your baby face-to-face goes a long way in helping them acquire speech, language, and even social skills! We’ll break down the benefits below:
Visual and auditory Input:As your baby observes your lip movements, facial expressions, and vocalizations, they build a better understanding of the association between sounds and visual cues.
Social and emotional skills:When your baby babbles, gestures, or cries and you respond with eye contact, words, or physical comfort, neural connections in the child's brain are forged—the underpinning of communication and social skills.
Joint attention:Face-to-face interaction promotes joint attention, where you and your baby focus on the same object or activity while communicating. This creates a foundation for later communication and social skills.
So, don’t underestimate the value of slowing down, holding your baby, and sparking a simple conversation. Even if they can only babble back, this is big work and brings value to many aspects of their development.