WHAT THE RESEARCH SUGGESTS

Rhythm first,
words later.

Row, row, row your boat is doing real work.

Researchers recording babies' brain activity found they track the rhythm of speech months before they reliably pick out its individual sounds. That may be why sing-song talk and nursery rhymes feature so often in NHS advice on learning to talk.

SING IT again and again

Check an age

A baby's tiny hand held in an adult's hand on a soft blanket, with a knitted toy and a book nearby — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Rhythm comes early
Repetition helps
Actions aid memory
Why rhymes suit young ears

THE SHORT ANSWER

Babies hear the beat
before the sounds.

Phonetic detail arrives slowly in the first year.
Rhythm may be the scaffold it hangs on.

RHYTHM

The beat comes first

A sister study found babies processed rhythmic speech at two months old, and individual differences predicted later language.

Check an age

SPEECH SOUNDS

Sounds take longer

Brain recordings showed individual speech sounds were not encoded reliably until about seven months, and were still sparse at 11 months.

See the numbers

AT HOME

Sing, repeat, add actions

NHS advice says singing helps babies tune in to the rhythm of language, and doing the actions helps children remember the words.

Try it

A QUICK AGE CHECK

What can a baby's
brain pick out?

Pick an age to see what the Cambridge BabyRhythm studies found. The bar shows how adult-like the brain's encoding of individual speech sounds was.

Age check

Choose an age2 months4 months7 months11 monthsAdults

2 monthsRhythm processed

A sister study showed rhythmic speech information was processed by babies at two months old.

4 monthsTracking the beat

The infant brain robustly tracks the speech envelope, the overall rise and fall of the sound, though phonetic detail is still limited.

7 monthsSounds emerging

Individual speech sounds were processed reliably from around seven months, starting with sounds like b and m.

11 monthsStill sparse

Phonetic encoding was still sparse at 11 months, around when babies begin to say their first words.

AdultsFull detail

With age, the babies' brain read-out of speech sounds looked progressively more like that of adults.

Sources: University of Cambridge research news (2023); Di Liberto et al., Emergence of the cortical encoding of phonetic features in the first year of life (Nature Communications, 2023).

Based on University of Cambridge (2023), Di Liberto et al. (2023, Nature Communications) and Attaheri et al. (2024). General information, not medical advice.

TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING

A beat in every language,
detail by seven months.

Two findings from the
BabyRhythm project.

7 months

Age when speech sounds were encoded reliably

Researchers recorded brain activity in 50 infants at four, seven and eleven months as they watched a video of 18 nursery rhymes being sung.

SPEECH SOUNDS · CAMBRIDGE 2023

2× a second

Strong syllables in speech to babies

Professor Usha Goswami says every language babies hear has a strong beat, with a strong syllable about twice a second.

RHYTHM · CAMBRIDGE 2023

In a follow-up with 113 infants, stronger low-frequency brain tracking of sung speech in the first year was linked with better language outcomes later, using both infant-led and parent-reported measures.

FOUR IDEAS FROM NHS ADVICE

Sing, repeat,
and add the actions.

NHS guidance on helping babies learn to talk returns to songs and rhymes at almost every stage.

Sing from the start
From birth to six months, singing helps babies tune in to the rhythm of language, and a sing-song voice keeps their attention.
Repeat the same rhymes
Babies love hearing the same songs over and over, and they need lots of repetition to learn words.
Play clapping games
From six months, games like round and round the garden teach turn-taking, attention and listening.
Add the actions
Songs with actions such as pat-a-cake help children remember the words as they grow.

A parent seen from behind singing to a baby held on their shoulder by a sunny window — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

A small wooden xylophone, a hand drum and a soft toy on a rug in warm light — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

WHY RHYTHM MATTERS

A scaffold
for words.

Goswami describes speech rhythm as the hidden glue of language. Babies may learn that English words often go strong-weak, as in daddy or mummy, and use that pattern to guess where one word ends and the next begins.

The BabyRhythm project is also investigating links with dyslexia and developmental language disorder. If you are worried about a child's speech or language, NHS advice is to talk to your GP or health visitor.

Questions

Questions people ask

Do nursery rhymes really help babies learn to talk?

Cambridge researchers say rhythmic, sing-song speech like nursery rhymes helps babies by emphasising word boundaries, and NHS advice recommends singing to babies from birth.

When do babies start to process speech sounds?

In the 2023 study, individual speech sounds were not encoded reliably until around seven months and were still sparse at 11 months.

Does it matter if I sing the same song every day?

No. NHS advice says babies love hearing the same songs and rhymes over and over, and need lots of repetition to learn words.

Why do actions help?

NHS guidance says doing the actions in songs like pat-a-cake and row, row, row your boat helps children remember the words.

Who should I talk to if I am worried about my child's speech?

The NHS suggests talking to your GP or health visitor, who can refer your child to speech and language therapy. You can also refer your child yourself.

Rhythm first,
words later.