Baby Talk

As both a nurse and an educator, I’m well-versed in concepts of child development from infancy through young adulthood. I’m also the mother of four, which taught me far more than any of my undergraduate or graduate courses. The process of language development is one of the concepts that intrigued me the most. I had learned that babbling (vowel sounds, then cooing, then verbal play) would come first, followed by meaningful one-word utterances around a year, then two-word phrases to convey meaning around 18 months, and sentence development with some elements of grammar (“is,” verbs with tense and number agreement, pronouns, etc.) beginning after age two. I had also learned that language develops faster in girls than in boys. I understood that most babies utter about 10 “words” by about 15 months, around 50 words by about 18 months, and could say some 200 words by age two. Nevertheless, as my children were becoming speakers, I didn’t have time to fully appreciate the evolution of their language skills.

It was easiest to follow the acquisition of my first baby’s verbal skills. She was particularly verbal, and had a long list of understandable (to me...) words by the time she was a year old.

· first word: “ki” for kitty

· other words on 12-month list: hepitopta (helicopter), towsa (trousers), ice keem, code no (cold snow)

My second child barely said a word by age one -- I thought she might be learning disabled!!! -- but once she started talking, it was in full paragraphs and she hasn’t stopped yet.

· first word (at ~14 months): “wazat” for what’s that?

· other words at ~18 months: bweebees (blueberries), rabas (raspberries), Mamani (Mama), delicomay (took us forever to realize she was saying “Telefrancais” -- name of a favorite TV show)

My third baby said words very carefully as he acquired his language -- he’s still very careful about everything.

· first word: “Enny” for his sister’s name (Evvie)

· other early words: cah (car), what, out, now, pool, doggie……

I don’t remember a time when my fourth child wasn’t verbal -- verbose, actually, much of the time!

· first word: “Miggy” for his brother’s name (Gramie)

· other words by 12 months: Miga (Grandma), spagas (asparagus), panting (planting), snofake (snowflake), sed (sled)

Now, though, as my grandchildren develop language skills, I’ve been able to witness the legitimacy of some of those child development concepts I learned. We have three little ones, two boys and a girl, all born within 18 weeks of one another. All of their voices started with “a-a-a,” then cooing sounds with some consonants, followed by vocal play with “da,” “ga,” and “ba” articulations. Of course, “ma” came much later. The oldest, born to our second child, said many more words than she did at age one, but is still in the multi-“word” utterance phase at age two -- although his language skills increase greatly every day. The middle grandbaby, now 20½ months, started making machine and animal sounds very early on. He has perhaps been a bit slower to get his “words” out, but he says every one of them very carefully, just as his father did. Our little grand-daughter, the youngest (now 20 months), has by far and away the most developed language -- in fact, she very articulately says “I’m a genius baby.”

As I worked through this post, I reviewed the most widely accepted theories of how language develops in children. The behavioral theory maintains that language skills are learned by copying/imitating adult language behaviors -- not through experimentation -- as parents, other family members, and consistent caregivers reinforce language development. Alternatively, proponents of the nativistic theory believe that language is a universal construct unique to humans that all normal children in normal environments will acquire, and parents/other caregivers are not considered to be consequential to the development of normal language. Emphasizing the development of a child’s recognition and understanding/knowledge of what he/she wants to convey, semantic-cognitive theorists appreciate that little ones KNOW what they want to say, but don’t always know the correct way to say it. Social-pragmatists assert that a baby first must have a consistent caregiver who provides all basic needs -- including exploration of the surroundings -- to whom the baby is closely attached, so that each time the baby perceives something, the caregiver perceives it at the same time, so that they can take turns addressing it via verbal and nonverbal communication.

While I believe that all of the theories I've alluded to are at work in every child learning to speak, I can see different factors more specifically at work in each of my grandchildren. I would describe my oldest grandson’s development to follow a more semantic-cognitive pathway, while my younger grandson is developing along a more nativistic pathway. My grand-daughter is certainly learning along the lines of behavioral theory, but she and her parents definitely take turns addressing everything she perceives along verbal and nonverbal communication pathways.

What fun this is!!!