Typical Development of Prelinguistic Vocalization Patterns Across Languages

All material Copyright © 2007 Bilinguistics
Reprinted with the express permission of Bilinguistics as originally published on their website.

By: Brenda K. Gorman and Ellen Stubbe Kester
Brenda K. Gorman, assistant professor at Marquette University, and Ellen Stubbe Kester, president, Bilinguistics, founded Bilinguistics in 2002 to address the needs of bilingual students with communication disorders.

This is a Continuing Education Course offered by Bilinguistics, an ASHA Approved CE Provider. To take the test and receive Continuing Education Units for this course, please visit the Bilinguistics website test page for this course HERE

• Content Area: Basic Communication Processes
• Instructional Level: Intermediate
• Continuing Education Units: .1 (1 hour)
  

Objectives:
Participants will be able to demonstrate knowledge in and identify:

• Basic acquisition of speech sounds at the pre-linguistic level
• Sound acquisition norms that are universal to all languages
• Common consonant and vowel patterns that are produced during babbling
• An understanding of suggested stages of sound acquisition
• Frequency of initial consonant use and consonant-vowel co-occurrence
  

Introduction
The development of the sound system leading up to the production of words has been well documented (Oller, 1980; Stark, 1980; Vihman, Macken, Miller, Simmons, & Miller, 1985; Vihman, Ferguson, & Elbert 1986). Data exist concerning the order in which speech sounds and sequences emerge (Davis, & MacNeilage, 1995; Elbers, 1982), the make-up of sound segments (Nathani & Oller, 2001; Mitchell & Kent, 1990), as well as the function of the speech mechanism when producing sounds (Davis & MacNeilage, 1995; MacNeilage, Davis, Kinney, & Matyear, 2000). An understanding of typical speech development is essential in order to identify the differences in early vocal development when a disorder is present (e.g. loss of hearing), and to understand when developmental processes are influenced by a second language.

For the purpose of this paper, speech development will be categorized and defined as, pre-linguistic vocalizations and canonical babbling. Pre-linguistic vocalizations refer to vegetative and non-vegetative sounds. Canonical babbling refers to patterned, minimally consonant-vowel (C-V) combinations such as CV, VC, or CVCV that meet the rhythmic requirements for sounding speech-like (Oller, 1980). Canonical babbling will include all vocalizations traditionally defined as reduplicated and variegated sequences meeting the timing requirements for being perceived as speech-like.

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This is a Continuing Education Course offered by Bilinguistics, an ASHA Approved CE Provider. To take the test and receive Continuing Education Units for this course, please visit the Bilinguistics website test page for this course HERE



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