Making eye contact with your baby helps build better communication skills
- Researchers studied interactions between infants and their caregivers
- They found those who use eye contact at age one are likely to learn more words
- These babies learned an average of 30 more words than the others by age 2
Eye contact in a baby’s first months of life likely goes a long way in developing their communication skills down the line, new research suggests.
A study presented this week at the British Science Festival found that babies who pair their vocalizations with eye contact at age one are more likely to have a more advanced grasp on language by age two, according to the Guardian.
Researchers analyzed videos of interactions between babies and their caregivers and later followed up with questionnaires to see how much they’d progressed.
Eye contact in a baby’s first months of life likely goes a long way in developing their communication skills down the line, new research suggests. Stock image
The study led by researchers from Sheffield University and the University of Warwick observed communications between babies aged 11- and 12-months and their caregivers, taking vocalizations, gestures, and gaze into account.
Unlike past research on the subject, the team also included the caregivers responses.
This revealed that babies who turned their focus to their caregiver’s face while vocalizing also knew more words at age 2, with an average of 30 extra words compared to others.
‘What this tells us is that babies are trying to communicate before they’ve arrived at their first words,’ said lead author Ed Connellan from Sheffield University, according to the Guardian.
‘When they’re doing this, they’re giving caregivers an opportunity to communicate back, and when the caregivers do that, that’s when word learning seems to be improved.’
It’s far from the first study to highlight the importance of eye contact in the development of language skills.
A study led by the Baby-LINC Lab at the University of Cambridge and published back in 2017 even went as far as to suggest making eye contact lets parents and infants sync up their brainwaves.
This led to more vocalization from the infants.
Similar effects have been shown in studies conducted on adults, and highlight how eye contact can make for much more successful communication.
‘The message of this paper is that it’s a joint effort; noticing what your child is attending to and talking to them about it will support their language development,’ says Michelle McGillion, co-author of the new paper, according to the Guardian.