Parents umming helps children’s speech development

Parents needn’t worry about uming and ahhing when they speak as cognitive scientists find it helps babies learn language more efficiently.

A study conducted by the University of Rochester’s Baby Lab, found that parents’ hesitations when they speak – called disfluencies, alerts a child that they are about to learn something new and pays attention.

The study, published online in the journal Developmental Science, was conducted by a graduate student at the university Celeste Kidd.

She says: “We’re not advocating that parents add disfluencies to their speech, but I think it’s nice for them to know that using these verbal pauses is OK – the “uh’s” and “um’s” are informative.”

Three groups of children aged between 18 and 30 months took part in a test involving eye-tracking devices and watching images on screen. When a recorded voice talked about objects, the child  looked up – 70 per cent of the time – when the voice said “uh”.

Younger children below the age of two years were found not to have made the connection between disfluencies and unknown words.

Children between the ages of two and three were found to be at a developmental stage where they could.