Babbling: The Importance Of Babbling In Childhood

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Definition. Babbling is a stage during child development where the infant starts uttering articulate sound, without pronouncing any recognizable words. The babbling is due to immaturity of the neuromuscular and vocal tract at this age. An infant starts babbling shortly after birth, though around 4 - 7 months of age is when constants and vowels combine and true babbling begins. This stage is called the canonical stage. At this time, infants finally have the power to open and close the vocal tract. Infants go through several stages while their language develops. At 7 months, the sounds being made sound similar. Infants are trying out tones and patterns similar to ones being heard in the infant's environment. Recognizable words tend to start …show more content…

Babbling is one of the many stages of talking, which is essential for communication. Babbling is when infants and babies begin taking the first steps towards talking. Language has a sensitive period. From birth until age six, children begin to learn adult conversational language. Missing language in this critical period will make it extremely difficult to learn language. By 12 months, if the child isn't babbling at all or making eye contact, it is important to seek intervention. The child may have a language delay, or hearing problem. The earlier the problem is detected, the easier it is to get the child's speak back on track. Without the basic skills of babbling, the baby cannot begin forming full words, and eventually sentences. By 12 months, caregivers should be able to have very basic communication skills with the child. The child should be able to start forming words such as "mama" and know who that refers to. Without these partial words, communication can be lost between the child and caregiver. This can lead to frustration from both parties, due to a …show more content…

Over extension is a common error in early speech. This is when a child uses one word to label multiple different things. (Rescolra, 1980). Over extension is most common between the ages of 18 months and 36 months. For example, toddlers may call every male person they meet "dad", or every animal with four legs a dog. Over extension occurs almost exclusively in speech, rarely in comprehension. About one-third of children's words will be over extended at some point. Over extensions are often based on a perceptual similarity. As children's vocabularies and conceptual categories develop, over extension decreases. (Keenen, 2002, pg. 218) Even though the child has made a mistake, it is a sign that the child is advancing in their thought processes. The child is starting to develop mental categories and

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