“Some parents may think it is undignified or detrimental, but babytalk is essential to the full development of a baby’s brain, says a researcher at the University of Alberta.

Babytalk, the universal cooing that mothers and fathers do to get their babies’ attention, is more important than we may have ever realized, says Dr. David Miall, professor of English at the U of A.

Babytalk helps infants to develop an understanding and appreciation of temporal arts, such as literature, music, and dance, and depriving babies of the alliteration, assonance, and other poetic elements inherent in babytalk could hinder their ability to produce and appreciate these arts when they grow up, says Miall, whose research was published recently in the journal Human Nature–An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective.” EurekAlert!