Child-Directed Speech and Input

Child-directed speech (CDS) — also known as motherese, parentese, or caretaker speech — refers to the distinctive way that adults (and older children) modify their language when speaking to young children. CDS is a central topic in AQA A-Level English Language, as it connects directly to debates about how children acquire language and the role of input in the acquisition process.

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What Is Child-Directed Speech?

Key Definition: Child-Directed Speech (CDS) — the modified form of language used by adults when speaking to young children, characterised by higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, simpler vocabulary and grammar, shorter utterances, and greater repetition. Also known as motherese, parentese, or caretaker speech.

CDS differs from adult-directed speech (ADS) in systematic ways across all language levels. The modifications appear to be unconscious — most adults are not aware that they change their speech when talking to young children.

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Features of Child-Directed Speech

Phonological Features

Feature	Description	Example
Higher pitch	Adults raise the pitch of their voice when speaking to children	Speaking in a higher register than normal
Exaggerated intonation	Wider pitch range with more pronounced rises and falls	"Where's the BALL?" with dramatic rising tone
Slower tempo	Speech is slower than normal, with longer pauses between utterances	Leaving gaps for the child to process and respond
Clearer articulation	Sounds are pronounced more distinctly than in casual adult speech	Clearly articulating each syllable
Stress on key words	Important content words receive extra emphasis	"Look at the DOG!"

Lexical Features

Feature	Description	Example
Simpler vocabulary	Using basic, high-frequency words rather than complex or technical terms	"Tummy" instead of "stomach"
Concrete nouns	Focus on words for tangible, visible objects	"Look at the cat" rather than discussing abstract concepts
Diminutives	Using "-y" or "-ie" endings	"Doggy", "birdie", "horsie"
Reduplicated forms	Using sound repetition	"Choo-choo", "wee-wee", "night-night"
Child's own words	Adopting words the child has coined	Using the child's word "baba" for bottle

Grammatical Features

Feature	Description	Example
Shorter utterances	MLU is significantly lower than in adult-directed speech	"Look! Dog!" rather than "Can you see the dog that's running across the park?"
Simpler sentence structures	Fewer embedded clauses, complex constructions, or passives	Simple SVO sentences: "Mummy is eating dinner"
More imperatives	Higher proportion of commands and instructions	"Come here", "Sit down", "Don't touch"
More questions	Higher proportion of interrogatives, especially tag questions and yes/no questions	"That's a big dog, isn't it?", "Do you want juice?"
Frequent repetition	Repeating words, phrases, and whole utterances	"Where's the ball? Can you see the ball? There's the ball!"
Expansions	Taking the child's utterance and expanding it into a more grammatically complete form	Child: "Daddy car." Adult: "Yes, that's Daddy's car."
Recasts	Repeating the child's utterance with a correction, without explicitly drawing attention to the error	Child: "I goed park." Adult: "You went to the park? That's lovely."

Pragmatic Features

Feature	Description	Example
More directives	Telling the child what to do or what to look at	"Look at this!", "Come and see!"
Joint attention	Focusing on the same object or event as the child	Following the child's gaze and commenting on what they are looking at
Phatic talk	Utterances that maintain social contact rather than convey information	"Who's a clever boy then?", "There we go"
Running commentary	Narrating what the child or adult is doing	"Mummy's making dinner now. I'm putting the pasta in the water."
Deixis	Frequent use of deictic terms to direct attention	"Look at that!", "What's this?"

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Snow: CDS as Scaffolding

Catherine Snow (1972, 1977) was one of the first researchers to study CDS systematically. She argued that CDS functions as a form of scaffolding — adults intuitively modify their speech to match the child's current level of comprehension and gradually increase complexity as the child develops.

Snow found that:

• Mothers' speech to 2-year-olds was significantly different from their speech to 10-year-olds
• Mothers adjusted their speech dynamically — as the child's comprehension improved, the mother's speech became more complex
• CDS provides a finely tuned model of language that is simpler and more regular than normal adult speech, making it easier for children to extract grammatical rules

Key Definition: Scaffolding (in the context of CDS) — the process by which caregivers provide a simplified, structured model of language that supports the child's language learning, gradually increasing in complexity as the child's competence grows. Snow (1972) argued that CDS is a natural form of scaffolding.

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Expansions and Recasts

Two particularly important features of CDS are expansions and recasts:

Expansions occur when a caregiver takes a child's incomplete utterance and expands it into a grammatically complete form:

Child's Utterance	Caregiver's Expansion
"Doggy run"	"Yes, the doggy is running!"
"More milk"	"You want more milk?"
"Teddy bed"	"Teddy is in the bed, isn't he?"