If you have spent time with an infant, you might recognize the scene: A child is wailing, inconsolable, and you, the parent, have to go to the bathroom. Or eat. Or attend to a pot that’s boiling over.

In a nutshell Human infants receive up to 400 times more direct vocal communication than baby bonobos and nearly 70 times more than baby chimpanzees, suggesting our talkative parenting style is ...

The way that human adults talk to young children is unique among primates, a new study found. That might be one secret to our species’ grasp of language.