As a society we appear to be talking to babies less. Cliche of the parent pushing a pushchair with one hand and using a smartphone with the other. The baby loses valuable talk time or “language nutrition”.

But the first 1,000 days of life are crucial for brain development. A poor, in terms of intellectual stimuli, environment can make a lasting negative impact.

In the US a new public health scheme started this month – Talk With Baby. Nurses, teachers, etc have been taught how to speak with babies. Babies respond better to sing song talk. The idea is they then pass this training on during any interactions with parents and encourage those parents to talk with their babies. By 2018 Georgia state in the US hopes all parents of children born will be involved.

Past research has shown infants from wealthier families had heard 30 million more words by age 3 than infants from other less wealthy families. This appears to result in kids better able to stay on tasks, higher cognitive skills.

This is why Georgia has this new programme – they have a large gap in attainment to close.

It will be interesting to see if the high expectations of this scheme are materialised…

If it is then we should consider starting a scheme in SE London.