I have read this 35 times and have no idea how this experiment worked.

"Child Development: Could I Have a Definition, Please?"
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Published: April 5, 2005, New York Times Science Section


Talking to babies in their own language - baby talk - may help them learn new words faster.

A group of researchers led by Dr. Erik D. Thiessen, an assistant professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, tested 40 8-month-old infants. The babies were played tapes of two sets of four-word nonsense sentences, one spoken in ordinary adult conversational tones, the other in the pitch and rhythm of baby talk.

For a few minutes, the babies listened to the sentence. Then a single word was repeated while a light flashed on one side of the room. As long as the infant looked at the light, the word continued to repeat. When the baby looked away, the recording stopped.

Dr. Thiessen says earlier studies have shown that infants consistently focus longer on the light when they hear a word they know. By timing the infant's gaze, the researchers showed that they learned words more efficiently when trained with baby talk than with adult speech. The study appears in the March issue of Infancy.

Discussing his findings, Dr. Thiessen said, "This way of talking, which we all have an urge to do, is actually beneficial for babies."

But he warns against adopting any particular method to help a baby's linguistic development. "Babies can learn from a wide variety of speech, not just baby talk," Dr. Thiessen said. "It's more important to interact through language in natural ways than to try to use some specific technique you think will make your baby grow up smarter."

Whatever, Zizmor, you make no sense.