Sunrise Ruby

Ben’s babbling has seemed much more varied and complex during the last week.  Instead of chains of the same syllable over and over again (’da-da-da’ and ‘ga-ga-ga’), he’s combining different syllables into babblings such as ‘da-ga’ and ‘bo-bo-ga’.  He’s making more and more consonant sounds (I occasionally hear a ’sh’ or a ‘t’), and I […]

[Read more →]

An IM conversation with a friend this afternoon has me thinking about motherese, the modified form of speech that mothers and other caretakers sometimes use to talk to infants. Some researchers have suggested that motherese aids in children’s cognitive development and helps them acquire language, but motherese isn’t universal–in some Samoan tribes, for example, […]

[Read more →]