Pre-linguistic Development

Question 1

Discuss the continuity versus discontinuity theories

Answer 1

Debate over whether development from babbling to first word is a continuous process or not.

• JAKOBSON – appearance in linguistic systems nothing to do with sounds produced at babbling period.
• Theorised that babbling is random; child produces full range of possible human speech sounds.
• Distinct from onset of first words
• With the onset of first words the child uses a very small repertoire of sounds because the sounds used at this stage acquire phonological value.
• DAVIS AND MACNEILAGE - studied a single infant and found vowels used for babbling did not appear in the first words.
• OLLER - sounds and syllable structures characteristic of the canonical babbling period closely resembles those of early meaningful speech
• LOCKE - At 4-10 months infants do produce a wide variety of sounds, most of which are common to many languages, BUT
• 12 consonants [p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, w, j, h, s] which account for 92-95% of consonants produced in late babbling are the same ones used in early word productions
• CV syllable structure of canonical babbling period (7 to 10 months) is also most frequent in early word productions.

In terms of the clinical link, true consonant usage in babbling appears important to
• Later speech proficiency: true consonant usage between 9 to 17 months was related to phonological proficiency at 36mo of age
• General Language development: babies with a small consonant inventory in babble are at risk for early language delay (PHARR)

FAGAN failed to find a correlation between onset of babbling age and onset of word comprehension and production

Question 2

Describe the development of babbling

Answer 2

• Babbling occurs 6-7 months; syllables CV shape. 6-10 mo reduplication of sounds but isn’t at 10-14 months (becomes more varied).
• Roug et al – two types of babbling occurs at start but variegated babbling increase towards end of year.
• As babbling beings, drop in velar sounds, increase in front sounds.
• Stops and nasals more common than fricatives.
• Mid- and front- vowels more commonly used.
• Infants use final syllable lengthening at the end of “canonical” utterances.
• Infants use similar rise/fall prosody to adults in their “canonical” utterances.
• Infant babbling between 9 and 12 months increasingly takes on the characteristics of the mother tongue (Boysson-Bardies et al.,1986).