If you've ever been a bit embarrassed when caught gazing into the eyes of an infant, earnestly making nonsense sounds, take heart. You actually were doing a very good thing. A new study conducted in three countries shows that baby talk between babies and adults is ideal for the infant's developing neural system.

And Dr. Patricia Kuhl, head of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Washington, told a White House conference that "the sing-song, drawn-out, exaggerated form of speech has a melody to it. Inside the melody is a tutorial for the baby that contains exceptionally well-informed versions of the building blocks of language."

Thus, says Dr. Rebecca Novick, early-childhood researcher at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, both the infant and caregiver make important contributions to what researchers agree is the most important milestone in children's intellectual development -the development of language.

Novick pulls together an extensive range of research in attempting to provide answers about how language is acquired, beginning with the very early stages of life. In her report, Learning to Read and Write: A Place to Start, she points to recent research by Rima Shore that says what infants and young children experience directly affects how their brains become wired. Most of the brain's development occurs after a child is born. From the start, the quality of interactions between infants and adults matters greatly.

What does this mean for parents and other caregivers in the day-to-day routine of caring for babies?

It means that loving care-touching, rocking, holding, talking, smiling, singing-the kind of care that is so essential for emotional development, is also "crucial for cognitive and language development."

Language development, Novick points out, starts with adults and infants looking at each other and smiling. It's typical for parents to ask real questions of their infants, pausing as if expecting them to answer. This teaches the infant how we take turns in normal conversational exchanges.

Novick points to another piece of research: "Videotapes made by Scottish researchers reveal that two-month-old babies already carry on rudimentary 'conversations' with their mothers," says Novick. "Typically a mother will say something to the baby and the infant will coo or move his arms. The mother might repeat the child's cooing sounds. Or the mother will smile and the baby will smile back..

"At two months," she adds, "these infants are already able to wait their turn and pay attention to another
person-critical conversation skills." Around six months babies begin to babble, making simple sounds that adults use when talking. These early vocalizations are essential building blocks of language. Novick reports that Dr. Catherine Snow, a developmental psychologist at Harvard, says "the baby learns that when he imitates this ridiculous thing we do of moving our mouths and making noise, he gets exactly what he wants. It's the first proof of the power of words."

It is just these findings presented by Novick that help parents, caregivers, and teachers to understand how infants, born with only a cry to tell their needs, become toddlers who proclaim: Me do it! How toddlers become three-year-olds telling complex stories and, only a year later, are four-year-olds who write pretend messages. The findings underscore the contribution that adults make in the way they interact with little ones, and the weight that it carries as young children learn to talk, to read, and to write.