Chatty parents may help boost their baby’s IQ, study finds

Chatty parents could help to boost the intelligence of their kids by just being themselves and talking a lot, a new study finds.

Scientists at the University of York found that babies who are used to hearing their parents chatting on a regular basis tend to grow up with better mental skills.

It’s good to talk – especially to your baby to help boost their IQ!

Researchers listened to at-home conversations between 107 pre-school kids and their parents over a period of time.

Parents were asked to do a series of activities, such as drawing and copying, with their children to test their mental skills, as part of the experiment.

Experts found that kids who were exposed to a lot of chatter had better reasoning, shape awareness and were more competent when it came to maths. They also had a great range of vocabulary.

“Using the audio recorders allowed us to study real-life interactions between young children and their families in an unobtrusive way within the home environment rather than a lab setting,” says lead researcher Katrina d’Apice.

“We found that the quantity of adult spoken words that children hear is positively associated with their cognitive ability. However, further research is needed to explore the reasons behind this link.

“It could be that greater exposure to language provides more learning opportunities for children, but it could also be the case that more intelligent children evoke more words from adults in their environment.”

The more chatter the child is around, the better their vocabulary may be

This study highlights the importance of young children being exposed to hearing people around them talking and how it can help boost their intelligence.

Senior author Professor Sophie von Stumm added: “We found that the quantity of adult spoken words that children were exposed to varied greatly within families. Some kids heard twice as many words on one day as they did on the next.

“The study highlights the importance of treating early life experiences as dynamic and changeable rather than static entities.

“Approaching research in this way will help us to understand the interplay between environmental experiences and children’s differences in development.”

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