Babbling
Babbling refers to the early stage of language development in infants, characterized by the production of repetitive syllables such as "ba-ba" or "da-da." This prelinguistic vocalization is a natural part of language acquisition and serves as a precursor to the development of meaningful speech. Babbling allows infants to practice and refine their articulatory skills in preparation for producing words and sentences.
8 Key excerpts on "Babbling"
eBook - ePub- Margaret Harris, Gert Westermann(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...In other words, infants growing up in a French-speaking community produced vowels that were typically French whereas infants growing up in an English-speaking community produced more typically English vowels. Interestingly, some differences were evident even in the youngest infants. Abnormal patterns in early Babbling can indicate specific problems. Children who are born with profound hearing loss do not develop canonical Babbling within the first year of life; and the appearance of canonical Babbling after ten months in child with normal hearing is a strong predictor of later language difficulties (Oller & Eilers, 1988). Key Terms Canonical Babbling Babbling that begins at around six months, and consists of recognisable syllables composed of a consonant sound and a vowel. Reduplicated Babbling Babbling that beginsat around eight months, and consists of repetitions of the same sound. 5.3 The Social Context Of Early Language Development The social context in which children hear people talking has an important role to play in the way that young children first begin to understand and use language. Infants regularly play games such as ‘peek-a-boo’ and ‘give-and-take’ with their caretakers and they take part in a regular pattern of caretaking routines such as eating, bath time or nappy changing. Identical actions are repeated many times over and the words and phrases used by the adult become a consistent part of these games and routines. Over 30 years ago Jerome Bruner first highlighted the importance of games and routines for early language development (Bruner, 1975). He pointed out that babies encounter language in a highly familiar social context because people talk to them about familiar events and objects. Infants’ growing social competence allows them to remember and predict the familiar social events or routines – nappy changing, bath time, meal times, games of peek-a-boo – that occur day after day...
eBook - ePubPhonological Development
The First Two Years
- Marilyn May Vihman(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...Mean age at onset of Babbling was 25 months (corrected for prematurity), with a range from 15 to 35 months. Babbling was rhythmic and repetitive, but despite these infants having language comprehension skills that were in the normal range for their age, use of these vocalization skills for the production of identifiable words took from a few days (four children) to eight weeks, with rapid lexical advance thereafter for most of the children. Previous experience with signing proved to be unrelated to lexical advance. The authors conclude that ‘Babbling is part of the process by which [the] fine cortical control of the larynx necessary for speech is developed’ (p. 2497). All three of these studies appear to support the position that speech production does not emerge without a period of vocal practice. The Social Context, II: Canonical Period Goldstein and his colleagues have recently initiated a new line of research into the ‘social shaping’ of prelinguistic vocalization, with a focus on transitions in the canonical Babbling period rather than on the precanonical vocalizations discussed above in relation to social context. Goldstein, King and West (2003) carried out a study very similar to those of Bloom and her colleagues to test the possible effect of contingent maternal nonvocal responses to the frequency and maturity of infant vocalizations. Thirty infants aged 7 to 10 months were randomly assigned to contingent or ‘yoked contingent’ groups; mother–infant dyads were recorded in a large playroom furnished with toys. In the contingent condition mothers were told to respond, as soon as the infant vocalized, by smiling, approaching and touching the infant, who was free to move about within the space; in the yoked condition mothers were instructed (through the headphones) to respond in accordance with the mother with whom they were randomly paired, i.e., on a schedule that corresponded to another infant's vocalizations but not to that of their own child...
eBook - ePubSupporting Communication Disorders
A Handbook for Teachers and Teaching Assistants
- Gill Thompson(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- David Fulton Publishers(Publisher)
...In the first few days of its life, the child becomes conditioned to the association between vocalising and comfort – it cries aloud and is either fed or rocked in its mother’s arms. This begins the progressive cycle of sound and response as communication develops and is refined to become increasingly under the child’s control. Different sounds are experimented with during the Babbling phase when a child practises and enjoys making strings of repetitive sounds, experiencing the sensory feedback as each sound is vocalised. By entering into a two-way interaction with other persons, the elements of both sound production and cognition become bound together as the child develops both physically and neurologically. The young baby soon realises that by making sounds, facial expressions, movements, it can influence its environment. As the child matures, it becomes more able to use expressive skills to effect – gesture, actions and language. In the early years, speech and language are used to communicate and to explore and learn about the child’s immediate environment. Later these two functions become more specialised and sophisticated and follow parallel paths in the progression of the child’s general development. Early language development is closely linked with the development of other skills – motor, cognitive, social. The child’s abilities to focus attention, to learn through play and to form social interactions are central to the development of language. The different components making up the language of communication are each important in their own right, yet inextricably intertwined to create the complex system by which we exchange information, express our feelings and intentions and share so much of our lives. In order to comprehend the developmental process, it is useful to be aware of the initial stages of speech and language, which set out the pattern of normal development (Figure 2.2)...
eBook - ePubEnglish Phonetics and Phonology
An Introduction
- Philip Carr(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...The quality of the low vowel will also be determined by these factors: a velar articulation will be followed by a back low vowel, an alveolar articulation will be followed by a front low vowel, and a bilabial articulation will be followed by a central low vowel. The onset of Babbling appears to be biologically determined: it sets in automatically for all human infants at this stage in development. It is arguable that Babbling in infants is the basis for syllabic speech in humans. The next stage of Babbling (10–12 months, roughly) is called variegated Babbling: the babbled syllables may vary from one to the next, as in [bɐ dæ] or [dæ gɑ]. The two stages often overlap, just as canonical Babbling and vocal play overlap. It could well be that variegated Babbling reflects increasing control over the vocal apparatus. Although babbled CV syllables are striking to adults, the child’s utterances during the first year of life are predominantly vowel‐like (vocalic). Between roughly 24 weeks and 41 weeks, the ‘triangular’ three ‘point’ vowel system emerges: [i] [u] [a] Why these vowels? Perhaps because they are maximally distinct: a high, front unrounded vowel is perceptually very distinct from a high rounded back vowel, and both are very distinct from a low, unrounded vowel. Equally, in production, these vowels require less fine‐grained motor control from the brain that the more nuanced mid vowels: the tongue is articulated at the extremes of the oral cavity. 14.2.1 Learning by Forgetting We can argue plausibly that human speech sound types are perceptual categories, in terms of which we perceive the speech signal. I have also adopted the view that phonemes are perceptual categories. There is empirical evidence that subphonemic differences in specific languages begin to be ignored by infants during the first year of life: this is the ‘learning by forgetting’ phenomenon...
- Paula Menyuk, Jacqueline W. Liebergott, Martin C. Schultz(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...There was no significant relation between how much our babies cried during recording and how rapidly they began to say words. Babbling We examined some of the kinds of sounds very young children make that replace their crying. This sound making includes coughing, laughing, hiccupping, raspberries, as well as other physiologically produced sounds. In addition, babies begin to babble. It is this latter sound making that is most directly related to language development. We examined the development of the frequency of Babbling and the relation between Babbling and word production. Frequency. We began by measuring how much the babies talked. To do this, we counted the number of utterances the babies made in a 25-minute period of time while they interacted with their mothers. We excluded from this measure all crying and discomfort noises, physiological sounds, and laughing that was associated with tickling. The infant who talked the most produced 369 utterances, whereas our quietest infant talked 25 times. On the average, the babies spoke 155 times or about 6 times a minute. There was no difference between how frequently the boys and girls talked. The boys averaged 151 utterances, whereas the girls averaged 159 utterances. The premature children and the full-term children talked about the same as well. The full-term infants spoke on the average 156 times and the premature infants spoke 153 times. FIG. 3.1. Proportion of cry and discomfort sounds in baby vocalizations (25-minute sample). We then examined how much our children babbled syllables. A babbled syllable was one that contained at least one consonant and a vowel. Another term we use is structured vocalization because these utterances require control over articulation. Table 3.2 describes what we found about the development of syllabic utterances when we analyzed 25 minutes of mother-infant interaction. As can be seen, the proportion of syllabic utterances increases as the babies get older...
eBook - ePubSpeech and Voice
Their Evolution, Pathology and Therapy
- Leopold Stein(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...There is not yet any considerable sound differentiation to be noticed, but definite variations in the tonus and pitch of vocal utterance can be recognised. Babbling PERIOD (CROWING OR Babbling TIME) 4 Prelinguistic differentiation. —From the age of about 2 to 3 months up to 6 months the baby’s cries grow still longer and steadier, about 27 per minute. Their pitch declines to the octave do 2 -do 3. Towards the end of the first half-year the voice of the child becomes more and more differentiated by an increasing variety of mouth shapes. Soon an enormous, uncountable number of sound shades (vowels) is to be heard. Sucking movements. —At the age of 2 or 3 months the baby already begins to produce the movements of suction, chewing, etc., independently from actual drinking. The resulting noises, the first of a consonantal character, are termed ‘clicks.’ In sucking as well as in ‘clicking,’ the buccal canal is divided into three chambers, (1) the labial chamber; (2) the palatal chamber; (3) the velar or laryngeal chamber. The air is rarefied by the rounding of the lips, the curving of the tongue, and the lowering of the larynx. 1 Clicks are thus independent from respiration. 2 The study of the clicks has proved to be of the utmost importance in elucidating the evolution and the history of language. We must deny ourselves any attempt to give a more exact explanation of the nature of these sounds, however attractive that might be. For references to this subject the reader is advised to consult the proceedings of the Third International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. The evolutionary importance of the clicks’ will make it necessary to refer to them again in various chapters (see Chapter XII, Stammering, p. 122; Laryngektomy, p. 195; Lateral Sigmatism, p. 154; Evolution of Language, p...
eBook - ePubThe Psychology of Early Childhood
A Study of Mental Development in the First Years of Life
- C.W. Valentine(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Jesperson, indeed, says that the first year is the period to throw light on the origin of language. 5 Essential elements in the learning of language. The essential bases of language learning seem to be the following:— (a) Spontaneous expressions of feeling or desire. These are part of the raw material though they are not language in the proper sense, as Stout points out. 1 (b) Spontaneous Babblings and practice in sound making. (c) Imitation of sounds and practice in making these. (d) Association of sounds heard with feelings, objects seen or general situations or relations. (e) Association of sounds made by the infant himself with responses made by other persons. The first essential bases for the acquirement of language are, of course, the child’s own cries and Babblings. Speech in the sense of articulate noises made with the lips, tongue and vocal cords is undoubtedly an innate disposition working at first without any external prompting. If there were any doubt about the innate character of this spontaneous sound-making, it would be removed by the fact that children born deaf babble for a time. Nor are these sounds only cries. Tennyson’s description of the infant ‘with no language but a cry’ may be true at first, but not for long. With B I noted as early as d. 10. New sounds—apparently grunts of satisfaction occurring after feeding or a warm bath; d. 16. Contented gurgle made at other times besides after a bath or food. Y. A gentle sighing sound—ă, ă, occurred while feeding during third and fourth weeks, d. 21. Guttural vowel sound (ugh-ugh) on being placed by mother to feed. (M said that it happened before end of second week.) Here is the first association traceable, and the expression has become anticipatory, d. 27. Contented gurgle after bath and drying more frequent now and distinctly two syllables, a-coo. A, d. 27. ‘Coos’ after drying but with a peculiar sound, coming down from a high note—sometimes continuing after a hiccough, d...
eBook - ePub- Ann Roberts, Avril Harpley(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- David Fulton Publishers(Publisher)
...The sounds contained in babble support the first words such as ‘dada’ or ‘mama’. Interestingly the names for parents are quite similar in many languages. The correlation of the spoken word and the understanding a baby has of language does not match: the baby may say three words but understand fifty. It is easier to start focusing on words of one syllable. Practical activities • Have a repertoire of simple songs and rhymes which you say while you bounce the baby on your knees. This gives a sense of rhyme and timing to the words. Include nonsense words and sounds. • Instead of singing a song try saying the same words in different ways - whispered, soft, loud and high pitched. • Play ‘Where is the sound?’ - take a wind-up toy, whether it be musical or just a sound, and hide it. Ask the baby where has it gone. Hide it under a cushion or cloth or inside a box. • Use books as a stimulus. Ask them to recall the story through the use of open questioning such as ‘Who knows what the gingerbread man said?’ • Start naming and labelling familiar items to encourage the development of vocabulary. • During mealtimes use simple descriptive sound words like ‘yum yum’ to express pleasant emotions. Relate single words or two-word phrases to routines. In this way routines are used to convey messages. Toddlers During the toddler years words start to become real human exchanges and the child gains more control in his life, although in these early stages sentences are shortened versions such as ‘me go play’. For language to have meaning and be at the centre of children’s learning it needs to be linked to real experiences. It becomes a tool for discussing their ideas and their plans, helping them to think things through and to talk about their feelings. Practical activities • Look for jingles and rhymes that use explosive sounds such as ‘Five fat peas in the pot’ to develop speech muscles. Blow feathers across a table or burst bubbles and say ‘Pop’...
