London - Parents often poke out their tongues at their babies in the hope they will follow suit.
But a study suggests that babies up to the age of two months are not able to copy facial expressions, gestures or speech.
Young babies given attention may become excited and make more gestures, but they do not imitate their parents, researchers said.
Study author Virginia Slaughter, of the University of Queensland, said the question of whether babies copied has been fiercely debated since the 1980s.
Her research, carried out with Janine Oostenbroek of the University of York and published in Current Biology, used a range of gestures including tongue protrusion, mouth opening, happy and sad face as well as three vocal gestures – “mmm”, “eeee” and “click”.
Object movements similar to facial gestures, such as a spoon protruding through a tube and a box opening, were also tested.
They studied 106 babies between the ages of one and nine weeks and found they were no more likely to make a different face or gesture than a similar one when prompted by a parent or the objects.
Professor Slaughter said parents had been found to imitate their babies every two minutes, which may help them learn to copy.
Daily Mail