Editing Developmental psychology (section)

====Language====
{{Main|Language development}}
Babies are born with the ability to discriminate virtually all sounds of all human languages.{{sfn|Berk|2012|p=189}} Infants of around six months can differentiate between [[phoneme]]s in their own language, but not between similar phonemes in another language. Notably, infants are able to differentiate between various durations and sound levels and can easily differentiate all the languages they have encountered, hence easy for infants to understand a certain language compared to an adult.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1111/b.9780631203124.1996.x |title=The Handbook of Child Language |date=1996 |isbn=978-0-631-20312-4 |editor-last1=Fletcher |editor-last2=MacWhinney |editor-first1=Paul |editor-first2=Brian }}{{pn|date=January 2025}}</ref>

At this stage infants also start to [[Babbling|babble]], whereby they start making vowel consonant sound as they try to understand the true meaning of language and copy whatever they are hearing in their surrounding producing their own phonemes.

In various cultures, a distinct form of speech called "babytalk" is used when communicating with newborns and young children. This register consists of simplified terms for common topics such as family members, food, hygiene, and familiar animals. It also exhibits specific phonological patterns, such as substituting alveolar sounds with initial velar sounds, especially in languages like English. Furthermore, babytalk often involves morphological simplifications, such as regularizing verb conjugations (for instance, saying "corned" instead of "cornered" or "goed" instead of "went"). This language is typically taught to children and is perceived as their natural way of communication. Interestingly, in mythology and popular culture, certain characters, such as the "Hausa trickster" or the Warner Bros cartoon character "Tweety Pie", are portrayed as speaking in a babytalk-like manner.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1111/b.9780631203124.1996.00014.x |chapter=Phonological Development |title=The Handbook of Child Language |date=1996 |last1=Menn |first1=Lise |last2=Stoel-Gammon |first2=Carol |pages=335–360 |isbn=978-0-631-20312-4 }}</ref>