Speech Development 0-12 Months
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 vocalizing frequently, or not according to the patterns suggested above, you may try:
Increasing your frequency of vocalization 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 vocalizations 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 vocalizing (babble play) can help some babies. Continue to work on increasing babies’ preverbal and
interaction skills.