From the Research
The answer is a. Segment the stream of speech. Intonation patterns in caregivers' speech, often called "motherese" or "infant-directed speech," help infants break down continuous speech into meaningful units. When adults speak to babies, they naturally use exaggerated pitch contours, slower tempo, and emphasized pauses between words and phrases. These prosodic features highlight the boundaries between words and sentences, making it easier for infants to identify where one word ends and another begins. This segmentation is crucial because unlike written language with clear spaces between words, spoken language is a continuous acoustic stream. Research shows that infants are particularly sensitive to these intonation patterns and use them as cues to develop their early language processing abilities, as discussed in 1.
This skill forms the foundation for vocabulary acquisition and later language development as babies learn to recognize recurring sound patterns as meaningful words. The study in 2 supports this idea, suggesting that word segmentation is a fundamental aspect of language learning that can occur solely by the computation of statistical and speech cues. Although other studies, such as 3, 4, and 5, provide valuable insights into language development, they do not directly address the role of intonation patterns in segmenting speech. Therefore, based on the most relevant evidence, intonation patterns in caregivers' speech play a critical role in helping infants segment the stream of speech.
Some key points to consider include:
- Infants are sensitive to intonation patterns and use them to develop early language processing abilities
- Segmentation is crucial for vocabulary acquisition and later language development
- Caregivers' speech, including "motherese" or "infant-directed speech," helps infants break down continuous speech into meaningful units
- Research supports the idea that word segmentation is a fundamental aspect of language learning, as seen in 2