ArticleInfancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies
Parentese Elicits Infant Speech-Like Vocalizations in Typically Developing and Autistic Infants.
Article in Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Social communication development in a contingent world: insights from autism.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Review
- Timing of Intervals Between Utterances in Typically Developing Infants and Infants Later Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.Brain sciences · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Caregivers across many cultures modify their speech when interacting with infants or young children. This type of speech, commonly known as "parentese", is characterized by greater pitch variations, longer duration, and louder volume compared to speech directed to adults. Parentese has been found to facilitate language learning. It has been proposed that parentese may benefit early language development because its exaggerated prosody encourages infants to interact with caregivers. We tested this hypothesis by investigating if parentese temporally elicits infant speech-like vocalization in typically developing (TD) and in autistic infants using sequential analysis. We compared caregiver-child vocal contingencies coded from 847 days-long recordings of 103 TD infants and 44 infants with a confirmed diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 3 years. Findings revealed that infants were more likely to produce a speech-like vocalization following an adult utterance directed to them in parentese compared to an adult utterance directed to them in adult register. Additionally, the strength of the sequential association between parentese or adult register and infant speech-like vocalization did not differ across diagnostic groups. These findings support the notion that parentese may facilitate language learning via encouraging infants to respond and interact with their conversation partner.
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Registered trials
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