Talk, Read, Sing, & Play Every Day

The best way to grow your baby’s brain and get them ready for school, friends, and life is YOU! The meaningful interactions you have with your baby — while they’re wearing their hearing devices! — make a BIG difference in helping them reach their full potential. Every moment helps your little one learn important skills like listening, talking, literacy, and more. It’s all in how you talk, read, sing, and play together! 

Let’s learn more about how you can make the most of these moments for your baby to support their brain development! Keep reading to find fun activities for children who is deaf or hard of hearing that you can try today.

Talk

Your baby doesn’t learn from cutesy noises like “goo goo gaga,” but babies do learn from hearing you talk to them. How you talk to them is just as important as what you say. Get your baby’s attention and support their brain development by:

• Repeating words
• Exaggerating vowel sounds
• Using a high-pitched, sing-song voice

Using these techniques to talk to your baby with hearing loss isn’t baby talk – it’s called parentese! When you use parentese and speak slowly, it’s simpler and easier for your child to understand and encourages them to participate! 

Remember: keep your little one’s hearing devices on all waking hours so they don’t miss a word or language learning opportunity!

Learn more about how to use parentese and grow your baby’s brain for listening and talking!

Read

Literacy skills start at birth, not at school. If your child has hearing loss, one of the most important things you can do to prepare them for a lifetime of learning is to read together early and often. No baby is too young to hear you read aloud to them! 

Reading aloud to babies every day has SO many benefits like

• Increasing their literacy skills
• Supporting their brain development
• Enhancing their talking skills

Despite the importance of reading, only about 37% of babies are read to daily. You can be intentional to raise a reader by making reading time a priority every day.

Find more ways to make the most out of reading aloud with your child with our guide to raising a reader. 

Sing

When you start to sing and rhyme, it lets your baby know – it’s learning time! Music plays a key role in infant brain development by providing opportunities to practice rhythm, rhyme, and repetition while engaging the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions, and memory.

Start to incorporate songs throughout the day – you could sing songs you remember from your childhood or you could even add a tune to the activities you’re doing.

Research shows that music and singing helps children who are deaf or hard of hearing develop listening and talking skills. Music is beneficial even while your baby is waiting to receive their first hearing devices.¹

The best part? Your little one will love hearing you sing to them AND it’s a fun way to make special memories together! You don’t need a professional singing voice to make music a part of your routines.

Check out more tips to use music to help your baby learn with this Incorporating Music at Home handout!

Play

The best toy to grow your baby's brain for listening and talking is YOU and your engaging interactions during play. Playtime is one of the first ways children learn about themselves, other people, and the world around them.

Playtime can happen anytime you’re with your baby. Your baby doesn’t even need toys when they have you!

Find more tips on how playtime can easily become learning time!

The Importance of Building Your Baby’s Brain

The early years of a child's life are a critical time for their brain, and the experiences they have during this period lay the foundation for their future learning and success. Infant brain development is influenced by talking, reading, singing, and playing. When you talk, read, sing, and play, you're not only building a strong relationship with your child, but you’re also helping their brain make crucial connections, which will benefit them throughout their life.

Check out the video below to learn more about how to make the most out of playtime with your little one each day!

The Best Toys for Kids to Learn to Talk. Hint - they’re not what you think!

Download an infographic with quick reminders to talk, read, sing, and play here.

¹Torppa, R., & Huotilainen, M. (2019). Why and how music can be used to rehabilitate and develop speech and language skills in hearing-impaired children. Hearing Research, 380(September), 108-122. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378595518301783