Theorists

• CDS development researchers believe

  • Baby talk contributes to mental development - helps teach child basic functions & structure of language
  • Studies found responding to infant's babbling with meaningless babble aids infant's development

  While babbling has no logical meaning, verbal interaction demonstrates to child the bidirectional nature of speech and importance of verbal feedback
• CDS development challenges

  1. CDS not used by all parents in every culture but speakers of all culture grows up fluent
  2. No conclusive evidence suggests CDS works or not - conflicting results
  3. Could be CDS more about building relationships than about language development in particular
• Clarke Stewart - 1973

  Children whose mothers talk to them have a larger vocabulary
• Nelson - 1973

  Studied Holophrastic stages

  • Children whose mothers corrected them on word choice and pronunciation actually advanced more slowly than those mothers who were generally accepting
• Kuhl - 1992


  • Studied exaggerated vowel sounds used by parents when speaking
  • Languages: English, Swedish, Russian
  • Babies tend towards adults in sing-song voice, ignoring regular conversational tone
  • Mothers in all three languages exaggerated important vowels
• Berko-Gleason > 1975


  Fathers

  • Tend to use more commands
  • Teased kids more
  • Refer child to mother when domestic need arises

  Mothers:

  • Tend to use less complex constructions
  • More sensitive and responsive to children