If you are a parent who worries you may be setting a bad example for your toddler when you use words like “um” and “uh,” think again. A study from the University of Rochester’s Baby Lab indicates these verbal stumbles, technically referred to as disfluencies, can actually help toddlers learn new words more efficiently.
For example, if you are about to introduce a new word to your toddler and you point to an object and say “look at this, um, uh…,” while stumbling for the correct word, you are sending the message to your child that you are about to teach him or her something new, researchers found. This causes the child to pay extra attention as you fumble for the right word.
“The more predictions a listener can make about what is being communicated, the more efficiently the listener can understand it,” one of the authors, Richard Aslin said.
Three groups of children between the ages of 18 and 30 months were studied. Each child sat in front of a monitor with an eye-tracking device on his or her parent’s lap. Images appeared on the screen in front of them and a recorded voice talked about the images using simple sentences.
When the voice stumbled and said “look at the uh…” children were much more likely to look at the image than when the voice presented an image fluently. In fact children looked up at the images presented with disfluencies nearly 70 percent of the time. This effect was only significant in children older than two years however, researchers reported.
When a child’s brain hears a new word without preface and then has to try and figure out its meaning after the fact, it becomes more difficult for them to learn the word, Aslin explained. The child is also more apt to miss what comes next, he added.
“We’re not advocating that parents add disfluencies to their speech, but I think it’s nice for them to know that using these verbal pauses is OK – the “uh’s” and “um’s” are informative,” said the study’s lead author.
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