Listen to kids to help them develop language skills

June 29, 2009 A new study finds, if you want to help children develop language and speech skills, researchers say listening to what they have to say is just as important as talking to them.

The study in the journal Pediatrics finds the effect of a conversation between a child and an adult is about six times as great as the effect of adult speech input alone.

Scientists say adults speaking to children helps language development, but what matters much more is the interaction; the more the child speaks, it reinforces their knowledge.