Lack of childcare chatter risks kids' language development

Description

The more words a child hears from birth, the better their language will be. Parents are encouraged to begin chatting to their babies as newborns, and most trust that when they go back to work, child care staff will do the same.

But a new study from Macquarie University has found that child care centre workers vary wildly when it comes to how much they talk to babies and toddlers, ranging from 50 words per minute at some centres down to just 10 at others. ...