Current Research

Baby Talk?

One of the most fascinating things about babies' development is their rapid acquisition of language.  We know that babies are listening to their parents' speech and becoming accustomed to the sounds and patterns of their language, even before they are born!  Every moment they are awake, babies are constantly absorbing a variety of sights and sounds, learning more and more about the world around them.  Before they can even talk, they already understand a tremendous amount of the language and activity they witness.

As adults, we seem to instinctively know how important it is for babies to collect information about their world.  When we interact with babies, we often adopt mannerisms that hold their attention or make things more interesting for them, and we do this without even realizing it.  For example, have you ever noticed how the pitch of your voice becomes higher and more melodic when you talk to your baby?  Some people might call that "baby talk," but it's actually a very sophisticated way of holding children's attention and helping them absorb new information.

Some of the studies currently underway at the Cognitive Development Project explore how adults use this "infant-directed language" to describe on-going actions to their children.  We suspect that the way adults describe complex actions can help a child break down a long stream of continuous action into logical parts.  This may help children in learning words for actions, such as "run," or "throw," and may also help them in learning complex concepts about people's actions, such as the difference between an action completed purposefully versus accidentally.  It is important to understand how children learn language and how they learn to interpret others' actions so that we can be better teachers for them, and so that we can more easily help them when something goes wrong with their development.

If you would like to be involved in this work, or if you have any questions, please contact us at (610) 519-4749 or email Dr. Brand at rebecca.brand@villanova.edu.