When babies learn to walk, their whole world expands. What happens when babies begin to walk and how does it change their world? In an experiment, researchers showed crawling and walking babies different objects and gave an emotion towards each object. The babies were then observed as they played. As the babies were playing, parents were given a language survey to fill out so they wouldn’t distract their babies too much.
Interesting enough, it was found that babies who walked had significantly larger vocabularies, in terms of understanding what their parents were saying to them, than babies who crawled. In a follow up study, the participating babies wore a LENA recording device all day so that researchers could capture what the baby heard and said. In terms of quantity, the crawling infants heard the same number of words and made the same number of vocalizations as walking infants; however, in terms of the quality of the language environment, parents seemed to be interacting differently with toddlers who walked versus toddlers who crawled.
From the research, it seemed that when babies made the transition from crawling to walking, there was an increase in their vocabulary development as well as an increase in the rate at which they were learning new words. Talking is important at any age, but it becomes even more important as a baby begins to walk. When a baby begins to walk, the way a parent interacts with it changes.
