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Via UW Today: Speech and music are key components of an infant’s auditory surroundings. While previous studies have established that speech is crucial for children’s language development, the role of the music infants hear is less understood.
A new study from the University of Washington, published on May 21 in Developmental Science, is the first to compare the quantities of music and speech that infants are exposed to. The study found that infants hear more speech than music, and this disparity grows as they age.
“We wanted to get a snapshot of what’s happening in infants’ home environments. Quite a few studies have looked at how many words babies hear at home, and they’ve shown that it’s the amount of infant-directed speech that’s important in language development. We realized we don’t know anything about what type of music babies are hearing and how it compares to speech.”
Dr. Christina Zhao
Corresponding Author
Assistant Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences, IHDD Research Affiliate
Researchers examined daylong audio recordings from the home environments of English-learning infants at 6, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months. They discovered that, at all ages, infants heard more music from electronic devices than from live sources. In contrast, speech was predominantly from in-person interactions. While the proportion of speech directed at infants increased significantly over time, the amount of music remained constant.
Read the full article, “Infants Hear Significantly More Speech than Music at Home, UW Study Finds,” in UW Today.
