Women 'better at baby-talk' than men

Mothers appear to speak more clearly to babies

Women are better at talking to babies than men, researchers say.

But experts warn the finding should not be used as an excuse for men to leave women holding the baby.

Instead, they suggest it could be because women spend more time with babies and learn what vocal patterns they respond to.

Research published in New Scientist magazine shows that even though both genders tend to use "coochy coo" language to babies, women's speech patterns are clearer than men's.

Because mothers spend more time with babies, it might be that they are learning what babies respond to

Gillian Fletcher, National Childbirth Trust

To study parents' speech, psychologists at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, designed a computer programme to respond to speech.

Babies pick up on the effect of speech, rather than actual words.

So the computer programme monitored properties of speech, such as rhythm, pitch and stress.

Warnings

Six sets of parents were asked to play with their children and make approving or disapproving comments designed either to encourage the child, or to warn them to stay away from dangerous objects such as sharp instruments or electrical appliances.

They then used the programme to analyse almost 700 excerpts of speech.

In 80% of cases, it correctly distinguished between approving or disapproving comments.

But the programme correctly identified 12% more of comments made by the mothers, which the researchers suggesting means women use less ambiguous sounds than men when talking to babies.

Gerald McRoberts, a psychologist at Lehigh University who led the study said it was possible men had different speech characteristics that the computer did not detect or they may have been less relaxed in the tests.

But he said the experiment unequivocally showed that mothers and fathers talked to children differently.

He said "asking" babies themselves would be difficult for many reasons: "Not the least of which is that you can make a baby smile or laugh lots of times in an experiment but you can only make them cry once - then it's all over."

Stereotypes

Gillian Fletcher, president of the National Childbirth Trust told BBC News Online she would like to see the study repeated using babies rather than a computer programme.

And she said it did not support gender stereotypes.

"Clearly, when you have your first baby, no-one teaches you to talk to them. It seems to be instinctive.

"Because mothers spend more time with babies, it might be that they are learning - perhaps at a subconscious level - what babies respond to."

The research is also published in the journal Speech Communications.