Vocal development in babies (0-12 months)

In last week’s post on “Communicating with baby (0-12 months)” I mentioned that, in my experience, babies’ preverbal and interaction  skills are often a more reliable indicator of later language development than vocal/ sound development skills.

It is still important for parents to be aware of “normal” patterns of vocal/ sound development in babies. Babies with normal preverbal and interaction skills, but delayed vocal development may still be at risk for language learning difficulties or speech disorders such as Dyspraxia. (I’ll do a post on “Dyspraxia” at some stage in the future).

Below is a summary of expected vocal development in babies under 12 months (taken from Paul, 1996; p.205-206):

0-2 months

• Cries with high pitch, sudden shifts in pitch
• Vegetative sounds (burps, feeding sounds)
• Neutral sounds (grunts, sighs)
• Vowel-type sounds (ee, i, ah, oo, u)

2-4 months

• A couple of consonant sounds may emerge (generally ‘h’, ‘k’,'g’)
• Decreased crying (after 12 weeks)
• Some consonant-vowel combinations (e.g. coo, goo)
• Pleasure sounds (e.g. mmm)

4-6 months

• More consonant-vowel combinations
• Begins to imitate adult sounds in turn taking babbling games
• More varied use of vowel sounds
• Begins to use more consonant sounds (e.g. m,n, d, b)
• Begins laughing (about 16 weeks)
• Blows “raspberries” (sound with lips together and vibrating)
• Yells, squeals, growls

6-10 months

• Repetitive babbling begins (e.g. bababa, mamama, deedeedee)
• Short exclamations such as “ooh”
• First word may be heard, usually after 9 months

10-12 months

• Variegated babbling (alternating sounds e.g. bada, gaba, deebee)
• Uses a variety of consonant-vowel (e.g. bee, boo, moo, dee) and consonant-vowel-consonant (e.g. gab, baf, fad) combinations. These are often meaningless.
• Begins to imitate adult intonation (sentence contours, pitch variations) in babble (still generally meaningless)
• Begins to attempt meaningful single words. Sound errors often occur (e.g. “mum”, “car”- maybe produced “dar”, “sun” – maybe produced “dun”)

If your baby is not vocalising frequently, or not according to the patterns suggested above, you may try:

• Increasing your frequency of vocalisation with baby. This can be both talking in real words, or babbling to baby.
• Identify what sounds your baby is producing, then try to push him/ her to the next level (e.g. if baby is 4 months old, and using mostly vowel sounds, start demonstrating combination with “k”, “g” and “h” sounds (real words – car, key, hi; or babble – gagaga, heeheehee).
• Imitate any vocalisations baby makes (e.g. baby says “wawa”, you repeat it back, and wait for baby to respond again).
• Using a mirror for turn taking and vocalising (babble play) can help some babies.
• Continue to work on increasing babies’ preverbal and interaction skills, as mentioned in last week’s post.

And… see a Speech Pathologist if concerned.

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