Hours and hours of recording of thousands of very young children, to reach this conclusion: before the age of one year, little boys babble more than little girls.
Originally, researchers at the University of Memphis were interested in the origins of language in early childhood. These “areuh”, “aga” and other small cries uttered by toddlers, generally from three months. But over the course of their research, they ended up realizing that little boys made more sounds than little girls.
How ? By analyzing no less than 450,000 hours of sounds spoken by 5,899 very young children. Conclusion: during their first year of life, male babies pronounce 10% more sounds than little girls. Then the trend is reversed: between one and two years old, little girls produce 7% more sounds than little boys.
Infant mortality
To explain these results, the authors of this large experimental study suggest that they could be part of an evolutionary theory, according to which infants emit many sounds very early to attract attention, trigger protective behaviors of their parents and thus improve their chances of survival.
But then, why do boys “talk” more than girls, and only during their first year of life? Perhaps because they are more likely than girls to die in that first year, the researchers say.
It is indeed a complex and multifactorial phenomenon, observable in most industrialized countries. In France, for example, where infant mortality has been increasing for the past ten years, the mortality rate for male children under the age of one year was 3.3 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2020, according to INED figures, compared to 2.8 for girls. After a year and up to 4 years, the rate “falls” to 0.2 per 1,000, regardless of gender.