Getting Started: How You and Your Infant Create Language
Together Did You Know? • At birth, infants prefer their mothers’
voices to other women’s voices. • To an infant, the human face
is a fascinating object. • Infants can express many desires and
wants before they can talk. As young, first-time parents, Jim
and Karen were relatively calm and self-assured in their
parenting skills for their infant daughter. Three weeks after
their daughter’s birth, Karen and the baby had a nursing
schedule set, and Jim was fast becoming an expert diapering
service. They marveled over how beautiful their daughter was and
wondered what her voice would be like when she began to talk.
They knew children did not talk until about age one, and they
were anxious to begin communicating with their little one.
However, during that third week, something interesting happened.
As Jim was changing her diapers, she smiled. He also noticed
that her eyes seemed to brighten when Karen spoke from the other
room. Suddenly he realized that his li