Despite well-meaning concerns over infant cognition, a University of Manitoba researcher is discovering that babies from across the globe prefer baby talk.

Melanie Soderstrom, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Manitoba (UM) is co-leading a large international team consisting of 149 researchers across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia called ManyBabies 

Researchers exploring infant cognition and language development found that infants respond best to when they know they are being directly communicated with. Often these communications will include high-pitched, song-like speech. 

“The finding that infants prefer to listen to infant-directed speech is not new, but this preference has important implications for how caregiver behaviour supports infants’ language development,” says Soderstrom.

Researchers found that infants aged 12-15 months old "overwhelmingly preferred" it when parents used "baby talk."