Baby Talk Is Similar Across The World

Across the cultures there are vast differences in early child-bring up environments. Example, French documentary Babies, which documents the life of newborns in five different cultures, illustrate the multitude of ways newborns can be raised across distinct ecological and developmental situation.

A type of speech associated with an older person speaking to a child is called a baby speech. It is also called caretaker speech, infant-directed speech (IDS), child-directed speech (CDS), child-directed language (CDL), caregiver register, or motherese. Across the globe, mothers speak individually to their children than they do to other adults.
These changes clarify the reality of child growing up in noticeable ambience. Anthropologists have been documenting such variability for decades producing detailed ethnographies of parenting, family life and socialization practices across different cultural settings. Developmental psychologists have found that these early experiences shape human development.
Yet despite these fascinating differences, a whopping 95 per cent of developmental science is based on only five cent of the world’s population.
The majority of developmental psychology studies are based on WEIRD societies: western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic populations. Given this imbalance, one might wonder whether our knowledge of child development extends beyond urban, North American societies. The answer is, it depends.
ATTACHMENT PARENTING
Vanuatu was colonized by both the French and English. I have been working in a community on Tanna, Vanuatu. Historically, nearly half of the population on Tanna Island has rejected colonization and all that it imposed: western education, languages and forms of religion. Therefore, Tanna has provided an interesting and remarkable forum for looking at socialization goals and developmental outcomes. Tanna is considered somewhat of a natural experiment for examining the impact of variation in socialization on development.
For example, Heidi Keller, professor of psychology at Universität Osnabrück in Germany has recently suggested that one of the foundational human development theories, attachment theory, is western-biased and in need of revision. Attachment theory suggests that the bond (the first relationship) between a child and her caregiver is the foundational human relationship upon which all other relationships are built. Keller suggests, however, that our understanding of human development is based on child development as it occurs within the western context.

By : Abhishek Singh
Content : https://theconversation.com/baby-talk-is-similar-all-over-the-world-113153