Eleven-month-old Josh is sitting on the carpet playing with a toy rabbit. His mum says, ‘Have you found your rabbit? He’s a lovely rabbit, isn’t he? Are you giving him a kiss? Ah! Is he dancing? He’s a lovely rabbit!’
This is the kind of conversation you hear people having with babies all the time. They spontaneously tune in to what has caught the child’s interest and they talk about it. This style of interaction is referred to as contingent talk – talk that is about (that is, contingent on) whatever has caught a baby’s attention. Recent research suggests that hearing contingent talk could boost early language development.
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