Dr. Rachel Albert, associate professor of psychology, published “Infant vocalizations elicit simplified speech in childcare” in Infancy with co-authors Morgan Ernst ’21 and Dr. Claire Vallotton (Michigan State University). The paper demonstrates that infants use their vocalizations to actively shape their learning environments in multiple social settings—including childcare classrooms! Just like mothers, childcare teachers simplify their speech when responding to baby babbles to provide simpler more learnable information at moments infants are more receptive to learning.