Understanding Child Development

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Far from being a bad habit, "baby talk" plays a crucial role in how babies learn language.

"Parentese" helps babies pay attention, engage, and learn language more easily.

Mistakes are normal and temporary, and language “errors” show rule-building, not failure.

“Don’t use baby talk. Speak to them like an adult.”

“Don’t use baby talk. Speak to them like an adult.”

It’s a familiar piece of advice, often delivered with confidence and good intentions. The reasoning seems straightforward. If we want children to learn proper language, we should model it clearly and correctly from the very beginning. But this common belief doesn’t quite hold up under scientific scrutiny. In fact, what many people dismiss as “baby talk” turns out to be one of the most powerful tools we have for supporting early language development. (Stollznow, 2026)

Part of the confusion lies in what we mean by baby talk. Linguists typically use the term parentese (sometimes called motherese) to describe the distinctive way adults naturally speak to infants (Ramírez-Esparza et al., 2017). This is not the same as using nonsensical strings like “goo goo ga ga.” Rather, parentese involves real words and grammatically correct sentences, delivered in a higher pitch, with exaggerated intonation, slower pacing, and elongated vowels. It’s the difference between saying “Are you hungry?” in a flat tone and “Are you huuungry?” with a warm, sing-song cadence. Most caregivers slip into this mode instinctively, often without realizing it.

Far from being a bad habit, parentese appears to play a crucial role in how babies learn language (Saint-Georges et al., 2013). Infants are not passive listeners. They are highly attuned to the sounds around them, and parentese helps those sounds........

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