[COOING]
[BABBLING]
This video will help parents understand the stages of baby
talk, from birth through the first 12 months.
We'll cover early speech milestones,
from initial sounds, to those all-important, much-awaited
first words.
Bye!
Bye.
We're going to show what each stage sounds like,
and explain what's going on behind the scenes with babies
hearing and understanding-- the foundations of good speech
development.
It starts with phonation stage.
From birth to two months, we hear vowels, consonants,
throaty sounds.
They're also developing differentiated crying,
which has two-fold importance.
The first is it lets us know that babies know that they need
to communicate different needs.
You want to eat something?
And the second is that it helps parents figure out
what's going on with baby.
From birth, baby is already paying attention,
and this is the foundation for the development
of speech sound.
She's startling to loud noises.
He recognizes your voice.
He quiets, and eventually smiles when you speak to him.
There are increases or decreases in sucking behavior in response
to new and different sounds, which
is why it's so very important that you speak to your baby.
Research tells us babies need to hear their first words about
500 times before they say them.
[COOING]
From two to three months, we have the goo stage.
In addition to all the other sounds,
we start to hear the typical cooing and gooing.
[COOING]
Yeah?
And we really want to hear these changes,
because it says to us that baby's hearing is OK,
and that he or she is starting to recognize
the sounds of their language.
Interestingly, babies are born with the ability
to say all the sounds in all the languages, which
is why it's so much easier to learn a foreign language
when you're young.
And it's through hearing the specific sounds
in their own language--
Can you say hi to Danielle?
--that they begin to shape their speech to that model.
From four to six months is the expansion stage.
"Ah-ma."
Babbling is starting to sound more speech-like
with many different sounds, including P, B and M.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[LAUGHING]
They're laughing.
They're vocalizing their excitement, and sometimes,
their displeasure.
Growling, trilling, squealing-- speech
is becoming a game, as well as a way to communicate.
Anna, look!
Babies are moving their eyes in the direction of sounds.
They're watching conversations.
[BELL JINGLING]
They're noticing toys that make sounds--
[XYLOPHONE CLANGING]
--and they're starting to listen to music with a different kind
of purpose.
From seven to ten months is the canonical stage.
Babbling has both long and short groups of sounds.
"La.
La, la, la."
They're using non-crying sounds to get and keep your attention.
"Aah!"
This is when you'll see babies do things like cough--
[COUGHING]
--and then if you notice, they'll
cough again to keep getting your attention.
They use gestures to communicate,
and they're imitating many different speech sounds.
From seven months to a year, they're
enjoying games like peekaboo.
These are the games that teach the rhythm of conversation.
Can I get it?
"Da."
They're really listening when you speak to them.
Can you roll it to me?
And they're beginning to respond to simple requests--
Where's your elephant?
--and they're recognizing words for common objects.
Can I have it?
The variegated babble stage is the very last step
for real words.
From 11 to 12 months, we're hearing
varied babble and gibberish that has the rhythms
and patterns of speech.
[BABBLING]
In fact, you'd almost think they were really talking.
[BABBLING]
What happened?
Often, parents will say to us, "It's
like he's speaking a foreign language!
It sounds so much like conversation."
[BABBLING]
Finally, around the very first birthday,
baby has one or two words.
Bye!
Bye.
Although it might take a little while before the sounds
are really clear.
Every baby is different.
Some will hit their milestones early, some a little bit later.
Others will be right on time.
Sometimes when your baby is working on certain motor
milestones, there may be a few days when
they're quieter than usual.
It's to be expected.
Most importantly, if you're concerned--
if your baby seems to be lagging behind--
you should talk to your pediatrician,
and ask whether a referral to a speech pathologist
would be a good idea.
In the meantime, talk to your baby as much as you can.
[PIANO MUSIC]