How we respond to infant babbling matters! Previous work from our lab shows that vocal learning is facilitated by moments when infants receive contingent responses to their babbling. What do protoconversations between prelinguistic infants and caregivers look like? Our lab’s newest papers on vocal turn-taking interactions between infants and their caregivers show that caregivers respond to babbling with words, actions, and sometimes a combination of the two. When caregivers respond to their infant’s babbling with words, they are more likely to get their baby to babble back at them, extending vocal turn-taking bouts. Over time, infants who engage in longer and more frequent turn-taking bouts with their caregivers had higher language comprehension and production scores in their second year. You can read more about these findings in Infant Development and Behavior and Infancy!