Chatting with My Baby
Parent engages in natural conversation with baby throughout daily activities, exposing baby to the rhythm and melody of human language. The agent guides the parent to talk about everyday things — meals, plans, siblings — and observe whether baby responds with guttural sounds, vowel sounds, or other vocalizations.
Opens a guided voice session in TogetherTime.
What you'll need
Baby alert and content, facing parent. Quiet environment with minimal competing noise. Parent close enough for baby to see facial expressions clearly — about 12 inches away.
How it works
- 1~30s
Start talking to your child in a warm, animated voice. Tell them about your day — what you had for breakfast, what you're going to do later, or just how cute they looks right now. Use lots of expression in your voice. After a few sentences, pause and look at your child expectantly, as if waiting for a reply. Does your child make any sounds? Any little 'ga', 'gu', or throaty noises?
Watch for: Baby produces guttural or throaty sounds like 'ga', 'gu', or 'goo' in response to parent's speech.
- 2~30s
Now try making some long, drawn-out vowel sounds to your child — say 'aahhh' or 'ooooh' in a singsong voice, right up close to their face. Watch your child's mouth — does they try to shape their mouth like yours? Does they make any vowel-like sounds back, even a quiet 'eh' or 'ah'?
Watch for: Baby produces vowel-like sounds such as 'eh', 'ah', or 'ooh' in response to parent modelling.
- 3~35s
Let's try one more thing — have a 'conversation' with your child. Talk to them, then pause and wait. When your child makes any sound at all, respond enthusiastically as if they said something brilliant — 'Oh really? Tell me more!' Then pause again. See if you can get a back-and-forth going, even just two or three rounds.
Watch for: Baby participates in vocal turn-taking — vocalizing during pauses in parent's speech.