During daily caregiving routines, look at your baby and talk about what you are doing. Repeat familiar words and gestures that accompany your actions. New Jersey Birth to Three Early Learning Standards. (2013). New Jersey Council for Young Children. Brooks, R., & Meltzoff, A.M. (2005). The development of gaze following and its relationship to language. Developmental Science. 8:535–543. Parise, E., Friederici, A. D., & Striano, T. (2010). "Did you call me?" 5-month-old infants own name guides their attention. PloS one, 5(12), e14208. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014208 (Level IV)
Parents who interact with infants and toddlers on a face-to-face basis through eye contact and talking about what they are seeing and experiencing help them build attention, language and learning skills. Brooks, R., & Meltzoff, A.M. (2005). The development of gaze following and its relationship to language. Developmental Science. 8:535–543. Rudd, L. C., Cain, D. W., & Saxon, T. F. (2008). Does Improving Joint Attention in Low-Quality Child-Care Enhance Language Development? Early Child Development and Care, 178(3), 315–338.
When addressing infants, many adults adopt a particular type of speech known as infant-directed speech (IDS), sometimes referred to as “motherese”, “parentese” or baby-talk. This kind of language seems to be preferred by children over adult-directed speech. The use of IDS has been shown to enhance an infant’s later word recognition. Singh, L., Nestor, S., Parikh, C., & Yull, A. (2009). Influences of infant-directed speech on early word recognition. Infancy, 14, 654–666. Golinkoff, R. M., Can, D. D., Soderstrom, M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2015). (Baby)Talk to me: The social context of infant-directed speech and its effects on early language acquisition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(5), 339–344.