We talk a lot about parental engagement in the development of a child’s education and how the success of progress in school can be attributed, at least in part, to having the parent actively engaged. A mother reading to her child can be an enriching and rewarding experience that has the potential for a positive impact on that child’s learning ability for years to come. Now there are some new studies that reinforce the benefits of a mother’s voice speaking to a child in more ways than one. A report from the Stanford University School of Medicine describes a series of findings on research conducted with young children and how they react when they hear their mother’s voice. The study focused on 24 children ages 7 to 12 who were currently being raised by their biological mother and the reaction each child demonstrated when hearing her voice. What they found were the building blocks toward successful social communication and interaction in these young children and their responses to the sound of their mothers speaking to them. The scientists at Stanford analyzed brain scans which displayed each child’s immediate recognition and subsequent visual and auditory affection towards that voice, even when they only heard a fragment or very brief sound that originated with the mother. Most of the children, almost 97%, were able to identify the sound of their own mother’s voice with complete accuracy, and they only reacted with greater emotion and identification when it was that voice they recognized over that of a stranger, which was also attempted in the study.

This study has opened some new and interesting doors toward learning more about how the brain works and the circuitry that becomes engaged when a child hears the voice of his or her mother. The research can provide a template for learning about the lack of social communication in children with disorders such as autism or other emotional or psychological afflictions.

This research supports how important parental involvement is for a child’s language development. The Latino Family Literacy Project specializes in this area of parent involvement and has developed a successfully proven method to reach out to parents and get them more involved in their child’s learning at home. If you are interested in being trained to implement a family involvement program at your school, check out The Latino Family Literacy Project’s online webinar training and in-person workshops.