How Do Parents Communicate with Their Infants? : The Function of Parental Proxy Talk in Pre-Verbal Communication

How do parents communicate with their infants before the infants learn totalk? It has been observed that the parents use Parental Proxy Talk (PPT)as if the speech came from the infants’ own voice. In other words, PPT reflectstheir expectations of what the infants were thinking and feeling. Thepresent study of PPT explored how PPT functions from birth to 15 monthsof age, and how PPT contributes to communication with pre-verbal infants.The results showed that there are three periods in the developmentof the use of PPT; (1) a gradual increase between 0 and 3 months, (2) apeak period from 6-9 months, and (3) a period of decreasing use of PPTfrom 12-15 months. The study also showed that PPT functions to supportnot only the pre-verbal infants but also parents themselves, e.g., in parents’emotion regulation.