Research conducted in a poor South African community found that training mothers to share picture books with their infants led to a dramatic change in the children’s cognitive development.
Professors Peter Cooper and Lynne Murray, co-directors of the study from the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, found that mothers were able to notably improve their children’s vocabulary and comprehension using simple techniques. These included following the child’s interest, pointing and naming things on the page and elaborating on content from the stories.
Results showed the attention span of the children whose mothers took part in the study almost doubled. Researchers said that as early attention is a strong predictor of later intellectual performance, training mothers to share books could benefit the children when they go to school and even enhance their future career prospects.
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