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Baby cooing

Repeat after me.

How does an infant learn how to make the sounds he hears - by cooing and babbling and copying the grown-ups around him.

Perhaps babies' babbling isn't simply random sounds strung together in an unbearably cute fashion. Maybe babies are learning how to move their lips, tongues, mouths and jaws to make the sounds they hear you make.

Babies have a powerful ability to learn the language (or languages) they hear.

Ma-ma, da-da, ta-ta

The researchers found there are four patterns of words common to baby babbling.

Sounds like 'ma-ma', 'da-da', 'ba-ba' and 'ta- ta', are used very frequently in many languages and they make up the first words that young children learn when they start to speak.

If you don't move anything else, and bunch the tongue up in the front of the mouth, which babies do naturally for feeding, then they are going to get sounds like 'da-da' ... 'ta-ta' ... 'na-na' or 'ya-ya'."

Those sounds make up the majority of sounds made by babies who babble. It just turns out that those sounds are also said more accurately by children and they are more likely to be included in the various languages of the world.

Talk To Me

The special way we speak to babies - getting up close, drawing out our vowel sounds and pitching our voices high, for example - seems to be just what infants want and need when it comes to sorting out the sounds of speech.

By the time an infant is six months old the average American baby has heard hundreds of thousands of examples of the vowel sound "ee," as in "daddy," "mommy" and "baby." From these thousands of examples, babies develop a type of sound map in their brains that helps them hear the "ee" sound clearly.

In a way, babies create perfect examples of speech sounds in their heads, with a type of target area around each sound. With their sound map for "ee," for example, babies learn to pick out the "ee" distinctly from the other sounds they hear. And sounds close to the "ee" sound may be in the "target area" around the perfect example, and the baby still hears it as an "ee."

These perfect examples of speech sounds, called "prototypes," have a profound effect on how babies hear speech and how they babble. They help "tune" the child's brain for the language around him, so that he can hear the different sounds of speech clearly. Even when adults don't speak clearly, babies seem to compare the mumbled sounds in grown-ups' speech against the prototypes in their brains and figure out what they're saying.

Babies need some practice making the sounds. By hearing, watching, and copying the adults (and brothers or sisters) around them, babies start babbling.

Be careful what you say.

Babies love to imitate the sounds they hear adults make. This is why babies around the world seem to babble using the sounds of their families' language.

And babies aren't just using their listening skills to figure out language. They also seem to use something similar to lip-reading.

What babies who are learning about speech need, it seems, is someone to talk to. And that someone is you.

There's nothing quite as endearing as a happily babbling baby. Knowing that these sounds may be helping your baby put together the building blocks of speech is an added bonus. But to get to babbling, and from there to meaningful speech, your baby needs a good teacher.

• Talk to your little one early, and talk to him often. Get up close so he can see how your lips move. Babies are wonderful copycats.

• Use "parentese" - draw out your vowels and change the tone of your voice.

• Don't be afraid to repeat yourself - over and over again. Favorite songs, nursery rhymes, and the words to favorite books give children lots of practice hearing the sounds of the language.

• When she babbles, don't be embarrassed to babble right back. Babies learn early to "take turns" with you in making sounds - think of these as early "conversations!"

Above all, enjoy these early conversations with your baby. At first, you may not be able to understand his brand of babble and coo, but the words will come soon enough. In the meantime, get up close, and let your baby see and hear how it's done.

Sweet Cooing

"Helloooo, sweeeetie. How's my baaabeee? Ooooh, you're sooo cute. You are sooooo cuuuuute!"

It's a phenomenon that even the most serious-minded parents can't explain: see a baby, start cooing. Researchers call the special way we talk to babies "motherese," or "parentese". This sing-song speech, often accompanied by exaggerated facial expressions, seems to be used by nearly everyone who talks to a baby. We all love to do it - mothers, fathers, grandparents, friends, even preschoolers addressing younger brothers and sisters. And what's more, babies seem to like it too.

But does parentese serve a purpose beyond making everyone feel warm and happy? Could the elongated vowels, high pitch, exaggerated facial expressions and short, simple sentences of baby talk help infants learn language?

The fact is - babies like it. Researchers have found that infants prefer to hear parentese to adult conversation (babies enjoy it even when the parentese is in a foreign language). Babies, quite simply, enjoy hearing the higher-pitched sounds and exaggerated speech patterns of parentese - even when they don't know what the words mean. Babies not only enjoy the sounds we make when we do it - they also enjoy watching our faces as we talk to them.

But no matter the language, parentese seems to share several characteristics and, scientists theorize, has several purposes.

• Parentese is higher-pitched, sometimes as much as an octave higher. Why do we all seem to become sopranos when we talk to babies? It may serve to get their attention.

• Parentese uses short and simple sentences, often repeated over and over again. Repeating ourselves may help babies figure out words, and simple, repeated sentences may help them with grammar.

• Parentese features well-formed, elongated consonants and vowels. We tend to pronounce words precisely when we talk to babies - pulling out the vowel sounds and clearly voicing consonants - in marked contrast to the hurried way we speak to other adults.

It's delightful to move in close to a child and communicate in a warm, friendly way that's sure to get a smile. And the slow, higher-pitched, singsong speech may be just what an infant needs to hear to help her figure out how language is put together.

• Talk to your baby as you go through the day. Even if young children don't understand what your worlds mean, they love to hear the sounds of language.

• Move in close when talking to your child, so that your baby can see your face and your lips move when you talk.

• Draw out your vowels and pitch your voice as high as you like. Praise his pretty brown eyes. Tell her she's a sweetie. As if you can have a big smile.

• Remember that you're talking to a baby, not a mini-adult.