Listen up!

We have always known that Moms are special, but according to a recently released study, Mom's voice plays a special role in activating her newborn's brain. In this experiment, babies who were less than 24 hours old were tested. When the newborn heard his mother's voice the area of the brain responsible for language acquisition was stimulated and awakened, as opposed to when he heard another woman's voice making the same sounds. Couple this with other studies discussing a parent's role in their child's language development and you'll get excited! Why? Because the best things you can do to enhance your child's language development are likely things that you are already enjoying with your baby. Try this checklist out:

1. Singing lullabies or nursery rhymes
2. Reading stories
3. Making eye contact while "cooing and talking" to each other
4. Labeling movements in the music while dancing together
5. Try games like "I Spy" as a listening game and then mimic the sounds that you discover