You have probably noticed how adults talk differently to a baby than to other adults. We generally refer this as “Baby Talk”.  Baby talk is a type of speech when people usually raise the pitch of their voices and do other things we would consider inappropriate or insulting in normal adult conversation. Substituting “tummy” for “stomach” or saying “choo-choo train” instead of simply “train” are the examples. Although some people believe that baby talk is not the best way to communicate with a baby, baby talk is actually good for the baby’s development.

           Opponent agrees that speaking more slowly, using a sing-song voice, and using strange words may not be the best way to communicate with your child.  A research in Psychological Science, based on the article written by Prigg (2015) which titled Baby talk is BAD: Researchers Say Normal Speech is Easier to Understand and Parents Should Just Speak Clearly to Their Child, found that mothers may actually speak less clearly to their infants than they do to adults. These findings lead many people to believe that due to the unclear speech that the parents usually used, the child will get difficulty to speak clearly later. However, the research does not provide any evidence regarding whether speaking more or less clearly to your child boosts language acquisition. Andrew Martin (2015), a member of the Tokyo team researcher stated,“At least for learning sound contrasts, the secret to infants' language-learning genius may be in the infants themselves.” The fact that they are able to pick up sounds from input that is less clear than that used by adults with each other makes this accomplishment all the more remarkable.

           The use of baby talk makes the baby able to discriminate between different speech sounds. Babies much more preferred baby talk than any other speech. According to Carignan, C., Kalashnikova, M., & Burnham, D. (2017) in their article titled The Origins of Baby Talk: Smiling, Teaching or Social Convergence?, shows that mothers unconsciously shorten their vocal tract when speaking to their babies, creating a higher pitch that is thought to have evolved from pre-speech, primate ancestors to provide comfort and appear less threatening to offspring. It is much different when talking to other adults. Not the use of the word that makes the baby happy, but the sounds and intonation. Baby talk uses a simple grammar and varied speech, longer pauses, greater emotion, and inflection, as well as distinguishable speech sounds and exaggerated facial expressions. It turns out that this exaggeration helps language development. When mothers use more exaggerated vowels in baby talk, their babies will fee much easier to distinguish speech sounds.

           Baby talk also facilitates language learning in infants. Dr. Kalashnikova (2017), a researcher leader at Western Sydney University said, "Infant-Directed Speech is actually a powerful tool that parents instinctively use to aid language development in their infant's first months and years of life." The high pitch in baby talk may grab the baby’s attention. It makes the baby feel more interested in learning a language because the melodic tone used in baby talk makes it easier for her or him to grasp the emotional intentions of speech. Baby talk is also repetitive and uses slower tone. This is really different when we compare with speech directed to adult. When adults talk to each other, they tend to speak faster and it is difficult for a new language learner especially the baby to understand what they mean. Baby will feel much easier to learn a language if their parents use baby talk. The more interested baby to the speech, they are more likely to notice the statistical patterns in speech. Enhanced attention may also help them remember these patterns better.

The baby talk gives a toddler a much bigger vocabulary. The more parents exaggerate vowels and raise the pitch of their voices when talking to babies, the more the babies babble. The more words babies hear, the faster their vocabulary grows. Word segmentation is much easier when babies have been listening to infant-directed speech. According to McElroy (2014) in her article titled Babbling Babies Responding to One-on-One ‘Baby Talk’ Master More Words, has discovered that the prevalence of baby talk in one-on-one conversations with children is linked to a better language development. It means that the more parents lengthened vowel sounds and raised voice pitch, the more the 1-year-olds babbled, which is a forerunner of word production. Baby talk is most effective when a parent speak with a child individually, without other adults or children around. It is because of the exaggeration tone that grabs baby’s attention. When babies pay more attention, they may distinguish the boundaries of each word and also the meaning. It is because of the tone of words used by the parents in baby talk requires a lot of emotion.

           In conclusion, baby talk actually has many advantages in baby’s development especially when a baby starts to learn a language. Baby talk has special kind of tone and exaggerated voice that is different from usual adult speech. By using baby talk, Baby can discriminate between different speech sounds. Baby talk also makes the baby feel much easier in learning a new language and gives the baby much bigger vocabularies. Therefore, it is so much better if parents and adults use baby talk when talking to a baby.

Source             :  https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/baby-talk-language#1

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