<P> Child - directed speech concentrates on small core vocabulary, here and now topics, exaggerated facial expressions and gestures, frequent questioning, paralinguistic changes, and verbal rituals . An infant is least likely to produce vocalizations when changed, fed, or rocked . The infant is more likely to produce vocalizations in response to a nonverbal behavior such as touching or smiling . </P> <P> Child - directed speech also catches the child's attention, and in situations where words for new objects are being expressed to the child, this form of speech may help the child recognize the speech cues and the new information provided . Data shows that children raised in highly verbal families had higher language scores than those children raised in low verbal families . Continuously hearing complicated sentences throughout language development increases the child's ability to understand these sentences and then to use complicated sentences as they develop . Studies have shown that students enrolled in high language classrooms have two times the growth in complex sentences usage than students in classrooms where teachers do not frequently use complex sentences . </P> <P> Adults use strategies other than child - directed speech like recasting, expanding, and labeling: </P> <Ul> <Li> Recasting is rephrasing something the child has said, perhaps turning it into a question or restating the child's immature utterance in the form of a fully grammatical sentence . For example, a child saying "cookie now" a parent may respond with "Would you like a cookie now?" </Li> <Li> Expanding is restating, in a linguistically sophisticated form, what a child has said . For example, a child may say "car move road" and the parent may respond "A car drives on the road ." </Li> <Li> Labeling is identifying the names of objects . If a child points to an object such as a couch the mother may say "couch" in response . Labeling can also be characterized as referencing . </Li> </Ul>

Expert in the development and structure of languages