18 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Importance of "Motherese"
It just so happens that motherese is in many ways ideally suited to stimulate young babies' sense of hearing. Its unhurried cadence is easier for babies to follow, since as we've seen, their nervous systems process auditory information at least twice as slowly as adults. Its louder, more direct style helps babies distinguish it from background sounds and overcomes the fact that their hearing is much less sensitive than adults'. Its simpler words and highly intonated structure—with wide swin...
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Babies prefer it when mothers speak in a highly- intonated cadence with slow emphasis on syllables highly repeated. This preference may begin in the womb, when such sounds are the only parts of the mother's speech to reach the fetus.
08 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
How Motherese Teaches Babies Language
The tests show that babies' preferences have nothing to do with the actual words mothers use. Babies choose motherese (or "parentese" or "caretakerese") even when the speaker is talking in a foreign language so infants can't understand the words, or when the words have been filtered out using computer techniques and only the pitch of the voice remains. Apparently they choose motherese not just because it's how their mother talks but because they like the way it sounds. Motherese is a sort of ...With its characteristic slow, repetitive enunciation of the words in culture's language, Motherese seems like an instinctual way a mother habituates their child to the sound categorizations of their language. This begs the question: if the Motherese imitates the sounds of another language, would that stave off the child's failure to distinguish foreign sounds later on?
