#ChildDirectedSpeech – What does it sound like - and
where can I find out more?
The way in which we talk to children has been the focus of extensive study and there are
many introductory texts that give an overview about child-directed speech
(CDS) and its role in language acquisition. In studies from the 1970s and 1980s, this
type of speech was often called “motherese” and the focus was on specific features of
mother’s speech that might support language acquisition. However, many patterns in
mothers’ speech also occur when other adults – and even older children – talk to children.
Hence, most researchers now employ more general and gender-neutral terms like “child directed speech” (CDS) or “infant-directed speech” (IDS), “caretaker speech” or “parentese”.
Moreover, some researchers explicitly use the terms “motherese” and
“fatherese” when they want to compare the way mothers and fathers talk to
children. The term “baby talk” and the related terms “mommy talk” and “daddy talk” are
usually avoided in research contexts or specifically used to describe a particularly
exaggerated and “cute” way of talking that is also rich in special “baby words” or expressions,
like moo-moo for cow, dada for daddy or nighty-nighty for good night.
Studies on the sound structure of CDS have documented its slow speed, longer pauses
between utterances and between words, high and varied pitch, exaggerated stress patterns,
and (“singsong”) intonation. At the same time, experimental studies have demonstrated that
young children prefer to listen to speech with these CDS-properties rather than standard
adult-directed speech. This seems to make CDS more effective than “standard” adultdirected speech in getting young children’s attention.
Studies on caretakers’ use of vocabulary have typically found a restricted vocabulary
of words; and many of these words refer to concrete objects, animals, or frequently
encountered people (e.g. cat, car, mummy). An inventory of special “baby words” like
moo-moo for cow has been be observed for many languages, though even in communities
where the use of such words is common, not everyone necessarily uses these words in
interactions with young children.
Studies on grammar and sentence structure in CDS have observed that childdirected utterances are typically shorter and grammatically less complex than utterances
aimed at adults. This lexical and structural simplification lowers the processing load for
speakers and can explain why CDS also contains far fewer hesitations or interruptions than
adult-directed speech and has a high percentage of grammatically correct utterances. In
order to get their message across to a listener with limited linguistic abilities and a tendency
not to do as they are told, parents often repeat their utterances, either word by word
or with slight variations, e.g. Now we’ll put your toys away. Can you please put those toys
away, sweetie? Please put them away! Put your toys away! All of your toys!.... This gives
children a better chance to pick up words from sentences. It also demonstrates the many
different ways in which words can be combined and shows which sentence structures are
used for descriptions, questions, and imperatives..
Researchers studying CDS have collected data for a growing range of languages and many of
these data sets are freely available. You can click HERE to find out more about CDS datasets
and tools or go to another website to find out how language games can be used in CDS-
research. These resources have allowed researchers to study many different aspects of CDS,
for instance cultural differences, the sound structure, the role of mothers vs. fathers, etc. If
you click HERE, you can find introductory readings and articles that give an overview of
child language development and the role of children’s input. You can also click on the bullet
points below to find more readings on specific topics
introductions to language acquisition and CDS
the sound structure of CDS: “Baby Talk” and the phonological/phonetic properties of
CDS
CDS in different cultures
feedback: correction, recast, reformulations
the role of caretaker self-repetition and variation (sets) in CDS
the role of frequency in CDS and formulaic utterances in early child language
CDS and the acquisition of grammar
CDS, joint attention, social interaction, and the role of media use
CDS for bilingual or multilingual children
methods and tools for research on CDS
feedback: corrections, recasts, and reformulations
language and hearing disorders, learning difficulties
gender differences: mothers vs. fathers, boys vs. girls
socioeconomic status and parental education
meal-time conversations
CDS from other children: peers and siblings
CDS vocabulary and word learning (including links to lists of “baby words”)
politeness, discourse, pragmatics, and metalinguistic abilities
CDS vs. foreigner-talk
CDS and parental depression
CDS, nursery rhymes, and signing
CDS for prelinguistic infants
children’s imitation of parents and their uptake of CDS
the motherese hypothesis
There are many academic journals that regularly publish studies on CDS, e.g. American
Journal of Speech Language Pathology; Applied Psycholinguistics; British Journal of
Developmental Psychology; Child Development; Cognition; Developmental Psychology;
Developmental Science; European Journal of Developmental Psychology; First Language;
Infancy; Infant and Child Development; Infant Behavior and Development; Journal of
Child Language; Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Journal of Speech, Language,
and Hearing Research; Language; Language; Language Acquisition; Lingua; Linguistics;
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
See in particular:
the special issue of the journal Linguistics 47(2), 2009, with a special focus on
different theories of language learning.
the special issue of Journal of Child Language, 42(02), 2015, with a special focus on
input frequency effects.
For chick-directed speech, you can follow them (and us via: @LanguageGames4a)
Sonja Eisenbeiss