From the mouths of...Parents?: Some Thoughts on "Motherese"
Chances are, if you've been in any kind of approximate vicinity to children (or animals, or...) then you've probably heard some form of Motherese, even if you didn't realize it at the time. First of all, what exactly is 'Motherese'? Simply put, it is that slow, often high-pitched voice caregivers (usually mothers and other older women, in my experience,) use to communicate with younger children. If you haven't seen it in real life, chances are decent that you've seen it in some form of popular media, used for comedic effect. This is because, simply put, after a certain point, it becomes annoying as hell. Despite this, there are people who claim that it can greatly improve a child's language acquisition in the long run. But the question is, how true are those claims? The answer, according to this article , is... kinda? Maybe...? Yeah, really, apparently the results of studies done on this very subject turn up inconclusive pretty consistently