The science is clear: high-quality language experiences starting at birth establish the foundation for success in school and life.
Science shows that brain circuitry for speech, language and hearing (and many other development processes) is constructed before birth and continues through adulthood with exponential growth of more than one million brain connections forming each second from 0 to 3 years old. From the third trimester, babies hear and process sounds from the outside world, especially the voices of their mothers. Prenatal exposure to language builds the foundation for cognitive development. What starts as crying, cooing and sporadic eye gaze – with caregivers intentionally delivering “language nutrition” – become babies’ first words, phrases, conversational abilities and ultimately the development of literacy.
Talk With Me Baby Implementation
Since 2017, Grady Healthcare, in the heart of Atlanta has partnered with the Rollins Center for Language & Literacy to become the first Talk With Me Baby (TWMB) Birthing Center in the nation and redefine their standard of care to ensure that all children leave the hospital in the arms of families prepared to nourish them with language. Each year, approximately 3,000 Grady Babies are welcomed into the world, surrounded by a language-centered ecosystem built on the practices and principles of early healthy brain development.
In 2023-24, the Rollins Center engaged Brazelton Touchpoints Center in a multi-year evaluation of TWMB at Grady Healthcare to determine the short- and long-term impact of training clinical and nonclinical staff and coaching families in language nutrition across several perinatal service departments (prenatal, labor and delivery, neonatal and NICU). The results of the study concluded that in both the short- and long-term, children whose parents engage in serve and return language practices, after receiving coaching through Talk With Me Baby, are exceeding developmental language outcomes in the first few months of life and sustaining developmental language outcomes over several years.
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