Leiden: Hearing
stories read aloud stimulates language development in all babies from
the age of 8 months, but in particular in temperamental babies. This is a
finding of Leiden education specialist Heleen van den Berg in her
doctoral thesis. PhD defence 19 May.
Snowball effect
Being read to allows babies to experience a more complex language
structure than that used at mealtimes, playtime or bedtime. That is why
reading stories to babies stimulates language development from the age
of 8 months. The effects are already measurable at 15 months. The
children who have been read to show an even greater difference at 22
months. Stimulating their language development helps increase their
curiosity for stories, songs and rhymes. The snowball effect is that
their vocabulary continues to grow at an increasingly fast rate.
Temperamental babies
This is the case for all babies, but especially babies who are so
tempermental that their temperament obstructs the communication between
the parents and the child. These babies are excitable and cry easily.
This problem also has a negative effect on language development. Using
BoekStart, parents are able to ignore the difficult behaviour of their
child and read them stories all the same.
BoekStart programme
Van den Berg sets out her findings following research on the BoekStart programme, which is an initiative started by the
Stichting Lezen
and the National Library, and which has now been introduced nationwide.
When their child is three months old, young parents receive a gift
voucher which they can trade in for a BoekStart kit at the public
library; it contains two children books, one of which includes a CD with
songs, as well as a baby membership ofthe library.
BoekStart as possible solution
The PhD candidate also examined which parents tend to pick up the
BoekStart kit and which do not. She discovered that parents who have
temperamental babies and who find verbal communication with their baby
problematic, are five times more likely to pick up the kit than parents
with a non-temperamental baby. Van den Berg's conclusion is that the
first group appears to have the expectation that reading to their baby
will benefit the verbal relation with their child.
Difference between better and less well educated parents
Van den Berg also discovered that more highly-educated people
with a temperamental child use BoekStart more often (almost 39%) than
less-educated people with a lower educational level (13%). This is
despite indicating in the completed questionnaire that they experience
the same verbal communication problems with their temperamental child as
the others. But apparently they feel less inclined to try and solve
this problem in the short term.
Van den Berg's recommendation is therefore to publicise the effect of
BoekStart more widely, for example with the help of child health
centres. Van den Berg's research is unique: in general very little
experimental evaluation research is carried out into intervention
approaches with young children.
- See more at: http://news.leiden.edu/news-2015/reading-aloud-stimulates-language-development.html#sthash.aJ5HLEw5.dpuf