Is Daddy Waddy home from Worky Jerky? Efficacy of babytalk?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Language acquisition is a complex process in humans. Psychologists generally know quite a bit about language acquisition in infants two years and beyond, but the period before this, the year between one and two is studied less, and it is this period this thread is about.

So who here with children or those who already have children engage in baby-talk?
Who here has refused to baby-talk to their children? I’d venture for the latter, there are not very many. Most people in one form or another say things that can be construed as baby-talk. As in the OP. There may be a mother waiting with her 18 month old, waiting for dad to come home, and saying, “…is daddy waddy home from worky jerky…” or a dad for that matter, there are more dads staying home in this day and age, “…is mommy wommy home from worky jerky…”:slight_smile:

These things are normal I would venture to say [please don’t ask for a cite on what is normal…we’re trying to be informal today]

It is common for people to automatically talk to children differently than they do adults, or even older children. Softer, shorter, more geared towards what we think kids can understand.

Some scientists believe that baby talk is an integral part of language acquisition the world over. Cite
Fantastic studies out of University of British Colombia show just how much research has played an integral part in understanding our children and the ways they learn to talk and communicate as adult human beings. Cite .
My opinion (which is shared by many) is that children who are read to more, and spoken to, not at, will learn language faster than those who are not. Piaget says to talk to children like they are simply little humans. His four age schemas correspond to learning and development in humans. Cite .

Personally, I like constructivists like Jean Piaget as they are people who cover not only the biology and psychology of human development but the philosophy as well. To me all need to be looked at in depth to understand why we do what we do.

So lets hear from some of the doper moms and dads out there, when did your children start to learn to speak? How much baby-talk did you engage in? Did you see a correlation between reading to your infants an how soon they picked up language…? How about english as a second language parents. What experiences did you have.

Mrs.Phlosphr and I are going to have a family…maybe sooner than later :slight_smile: and I am curious as to what others have experienced. We are both psychologists…but we are of the philosophy that we don’t want to experiment with kids…we know the cognitive reasons why they will do what they do…It is just going to be exciting to see how they grow into little people!

2

We never baby-talked. Well, at least, not as a matter of course. We’d do it once in a while to be silly. But we spoke to our daughter in regular English. She never had her own invented words for things, either.

I never could abide cutesy-talk. Not to kids. Not to pets. Not to sweethearts when anyone else can hear.

3

Mrs. Rimshot and I never intentionally engaged in baby talk. It’s hard not to fall into it every once in a while (especially during feeding time - it’s a short walk from “here comes the airplane into the hanger” to “open up for the planey-waney, dammit!”). But we did a pretty good job of checking each other on this.

We worked really hard at speaking in complete sentences to our kids, even when they were infants. Sure, they couldn’t understand the words, but we figured the cadences of normal speech, the facial expressions that accompany normal speech, etc., were important. I also found, to my pleased surprise, that I didn’t have to give up a lot of reading for pleasure - I would just prop infant Bubba on my lap and read Esquire aloud to him (it was a good magazine at one time).

One time, my wife was in the line at the grocery store with our then pre-verbal son, just chatting with him (“look at what the Enquirerer is saying about Madonna now, Bubba”). The woman in line ahead of her actually turned around and said “you do know he can’t understand you, don’t you?” This remark cracked us up.

The result? Two very well-spoken and early-speaking kids. Bubba in particular (the first), would startle strangers at less than a year old by asking to nurse in full sentences (short sentences, but grammatically correct ones).

4

I don’t baby-talk to Aaron, at least not in the way you described in your OP. However, I do repeat his own babbling back to him as a game of sorts. He seems to enjoy the interaction. Otherwise, I speak to him in normal, grammatical English.

For a 16-month-old, his language skills are pretty good. He knows the names of about 20 different objects now and can communicate what he wants most of the time, either through actually “asking” or through body language. It’s still not time to throw out the “baby to English” translator just yet, though. :wink:

Robin

5

We don’t baby talk to our kids with the “daddy waddy” stuff you mentioned but I do find myself much more high pitched when I speak to infants. We do mimic her sometimes so in those instances we probably sound silly, but most often we just talk to her like a person.

Our daughter started using a few words at just over a year but didn’t start to really pick up more than the basics (mama, dada, doggie, kitty) until her second birthday when they started popping up like popcorn. She’s now 2 1/2 and speaks in small sentences (Wow Cara room very pretty. is one she uses almost daily I think because it always makes me giggle)

I had taken some developmental psych classes and use the text from that more than I use my baby books for advice and for defense when the well meaning grandparents tell me she should be doing X already.

I don’t really read to her. Now that you’ve gasped and labeled me negligent let me explain :slight_smile: She doesn’t like to be read to. She prefers to take her books and sit in her chair and tell herself stories about the pictures she sees. On the rare occasion that she will sit with me we do read and discuss the pictures and have a great time but usually she takes her book and leaves to do it herself after a page or two. She will come back if she has a question about what something is.

From what I understand kids will learn to talk when they are ready and mostly independantly as long as they have the opportunity to hear language and to have people speak to them and respond to them when they start speaking themselves. I can take no more credit for her learning to talk than I can for her being able to build expansive towers or to jump and climb.

6

My wife and I used close to zero baby talk with our daughter. We did do (and still do) a lot of reading and talking.

I know I am basing this on a sample of one but I think it was good for her language development.

I can’t remember when she first started talking but I can definitely observe that she speaks far better than other children her age. She is also bilingual (Swedish/Russian) and she is equally good at both languages.

Another benefit of reading a lot to her (apart from the fact that it is fun for both of us) is that it appears she has more patience than other children her age. She can sit still and listen to quite long stories.

7

My wife and I did not baby talk to either of our two kids. Our son was rather advanced in his verbal skills, he was talking in complete sentences before his second birthday. And we congratulated ourselves on our parenting skills and smarts. Our daughter was two last month and the only words she can say clearly (so that any random person could understand) are “mommy”, “no” and “mine”. She is, however, much more physical than our son ever was. There was no conscious difference in how we talked to the kids either. Speaking normally and reading to kids are important, but kids will still develop on their own schedule to a large degree.

8

I did it to a degree, but mostly repeating Kalhoun Jr’s words. I’d say, “Do you want a hot dog?” and He’d say “Dog-dog.” So we called 'em dog-dogs for a while. When I said “Pick-up Truck” he said “Tupic Truck” so Tupic Truck it was. I don’t think it’s harmful. They have plenty of time to become adults. If they want to be silly for a couple years, I say indulge 'em.

9

But I swear…I never said “Daddy waddy” or “Werky Jerky.” I may have been overheard saying “Daddy Jerky” though.

10

No baby talk here either with my 16 month old daughter. We do our best to speak in normal English, keeping it simple and clear, but mostly just talk as we’d talk to each other. Of course some goofiness in language when being silly is hard to avoid, but more often I’ll sing a stupid song instead of being all “gutchy-goo.”

I do notice though that I have the mommy-pitch. I speak to my daughter in a higher voice than I’d speak to another adult, and have done this all along. Some information I read somewhere (that’s real specific ain’t it? :wink: ) says that babies actualy hear higher pitches better and that is why adults tend to pitch their voice upward when speaking to babies.

Twiddlette only has one word - “more” right now. I’m not terribly worried, even though it is more usual for a 16-month old to have 3 or more words, but will be keeping an eye on her language aquisition. She understands just fine though, and has signs for a number of objects or ideas.

I also read to her a ton, and she will pick up a book to flip through almost before going for any toy, so I figure inthe end it’ll all sort itself out.

Twiddle

11

I’m with Kalhoun here - no change in pitch of voice, no deliberate use of “cute words”, but some practical adoption of their words as they were learning basic words, concepts and usage. Examples include “Did you make a mess-a-mess?” when they spilled, because they would say “Daddy, daddy a-mess-a-mess!!”. Or holding the door and saying “come on, in-in” or at the stairs, “come on, up-up”.

More often I find myself simply repeating my phrases with greater emphasis and urgency - e.g., “pick up your clothes. Pick up your clothes. PICK up your clothes! PICK UP YOUR CLOTHES!!!” to break them out of the focus of playing with a toy, abusing their sibling or whatever…

12

Ditto, ditto, ditto. No baby talk to the Degrancelette.

She also was very advanced with language skills. Heck, her first word was a sentance. Not a big one admittedly. It was, “whassat?” For a couple of months that was it. We think she figured out that this made adults talk for extended periods. She picked that up at about 10 months or so I think.

She had a few words that she mispronounced at first and just hung around in that form for a while. We used the term Mama-milk to distinguish it from the stuff that you get at the dairy. For her it came out Ma-muk. We used that word for well over a year.

But as for cutesy “baby-waby” type stuff, nope, never.

I do have vivid memories of a female relitive of mine, who thankfully I no longer have reason to see, following her 3 or 4 year old child around the house with a plate full of food squeeking, “Time to eat your num-num!” <shudder>

13

Phrasing such as these I see as quite normal. Well, the ‘num-num’ one maybe on the fringe…Then again it probably matriculated from … Yummy --> Nummy --> Num-Num. I get it.

Maybe a definition of baby-talk should be brought to light: The OP, came from a commercial that is running here in New England, which depicts a mother staying home with her son, and she is feeding him right as Daddy walks in. I believe it was an insurance commercial…

But baby-talk traditionally to me always means changing your tone, pace, wordage to fit the situation when around infants. Daddy waddy and worky jerky are just spin offs of it in a over exaggerated way…

Oh God! please don’t let me analyze my kids to no end!!

14

I have two Little Gaffers, ages 2 and 4. Language development was normal for both but a little quicker with the younger one. I think baby talk was present but at a minimum. More stuff like referring to yourself in the 3rd person (e.g. “Give it to Daddy” or “Quit drinking Daddy’s beer”). We read to both of them daily and I’m pretty sure that the 4-year-old will be reading on his own within the next six months or so. Interestingly enough, when the older boy was in the midst of his massive vocabulary acquisition stage (when they constantly ask “What is that? What is that?”) I was working with a couple of Chumash guys and spending a lot of time with them after work. Anyways, they taught him a couple of dozen Chumash words for animals and plants which he (our son) in turn taught to his brother. I’m not sure why he insists on saying pinakata as opposed to stinkbug (he knows that they are both the same thing) but he does and my Chumash friends think it is hilarious. The younger boy now uses the Chumash words exclusively.

15

Mrs. U and I never used babytalk with UvulaDaughter, and we never spoke “down” to her or “at” her. We did use plenty of slang and colloquialisms, just as we would when talking to anyone else. We also spent a lot of time reading aloud to her - everything from Dr. Seuss to Tolkein. Her verbal skills have always been excellent, and she’s been involved in literary pursuits since junior high (school literary journal, yearbook staff, school paper, etc.)

Was there a correlation between reading and language acquisition? I don’t know. How much of it could be genetic? I’m told by my mother that I had advanced verbal skills for my age as well, and I remember reading at a 10th-grade level when I was in second grade.

16

We use the higher-pitched voices and the swoopy, drawn-out words, which happens naturally and I understand they’re good for language development, but we don’t use what I think of as ‘fake’ baby-talk like ‘Daddy-waddy’ that we make up ourselves.

Except that with my second daughter, I would say “Would you like some milkies? Yummy milkies…” and so on before nursing her. Now my 3-yo daughter thinks that breasts are called milkies and talks about how “now my milkies are little but when I grow up and I’m a mommy they’ll be big like Mommy’s milkies!” and so on. So beware, beeeeewwaaaaaaare!

17

Well there’s baby-talk (gahhhh) and there’s Motherspeak.

From here:

http://www.educatingbaby.com/stories/index.php

18

Like DaddyTimesTwo (except my sample size is larger by one), we did not use baby talk with our infants. By baby talk I mean made up words like those in the OP. My first born, a male, was an early talker. He enunciated beautifully and in full sentences, completely skipping the baby talk stage himself. On more than on occasion an adult would be talking to him and stop in mid-conversation, look at me and say “I can’t believe I’m having a conversation with an 18 month old!”. My next two, both female, developed speech on a more normal timeline. Both went through the baby talk phase where they could not enunciate well. My son had to serve as translator since I couldn’t understand!

The moral of the story seems to be that kids will develop as they will, period.

19

Well, I seem to be in the minority here in that, while I avoid babytalk and am heavy on the reading, my son has been very late to develop verbally. He is now 31 months and still using only very basic words and some phrases. He understands everything perfectly of course, and I often hear him pop out a word here or there that I didn’t even know he knew because the kid Just Doesn’t Talk. I really believe it’s simply a matter of preference on his part, and not lack of ability.

The baby is 6 months old now and the way I figure it the two of them will probably start talking about the same time because he is the most talkative baby I’ve ever seen. He has complete babbled “conversations” with me in a way his brother never did. It’s really one of the most amazing things, the way you can literally see an infant learn. The amount of information they soak up just by existing is unbelievable.

20

I don’t have a cite for this, as it was something I read a long time ago.

There was a study with adults given a baby. They were told that the baby was either a boy or a girl, but the test subjects were not allowed to verify this for themselves. Basically, the baby was either in a stereotypically girly outfit or boy outfit.

Almost always, when the adults were told the baby was a girl, their pitch changed and they were way more inclined to baby talk. They also treated ‘her’ more carefully. When the subjects were told the baby was a boy, they tended to play a bit more ‘rough’ and talked more or less, in regular language.

I wish I could recall more specifics about the study, but from what I do remember, this was true of pretty much all walks of life, such as different nationalities and income levels.