Babies begin to link words and objects from as early as six months according to new research in the journal Psychological Science, and appropriately they start with mama and dada. "Six months is the youngest age anyone has been able to show that children seem to pair sounds with a specific meaning," according to Dr Peter W Jusczyk of Johns Hopkins University. The researchers studied 48 six-month-old infants, noting their response to parental images when the words mammy or daddy were spoken. Most responded by fixing on the appropriate parent. They did not respond in this way to pictures of unknown males and females, which the researchers said, showed that the children were not simply reacting to gender.