Is Baby Talk Good?

Throughout practice in the field of Speech Pathology over the past decade I have heard several parents say, "Oh I didn't talk baby talk to my child" or have others say, "Isn't talking baby talk to your child going to impede language development?" Well from a developmental perspective "baby talk" is a good thing, and actually has another name according to scientists and medical professionals studying language development. It is called Parentese or Motherese.

What is Parentese?  Parentese -n: (Linguistics) the simplified and repetitive type of speech, with exaggerated intonation and rhythm, often used by adults when speaking to babies (according to freedictionary.com)

Parentese in Action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9qS_AZCdgM

Why you should use Parentese with your child:  
1.  It helps a baby pay attention and  learn acoustic features of your voice.   
     Source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode2/babytalk/

2. One-on-one baby talk with an infant gives a toddler a bigger vocabulary. 
     Source: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/october/fernald-vocab-development-101513.html

3.) It may increase your child's future success rate.

Additional resources:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4556687
http://www.readtoyourbaby.com/read_parentese.html
http://www.earlyliteracylearning.org/cellpract_parent/infants/PG_1_I_Talk2Me.pdf