Babble - Why Do Babies Do It?
What is babble?
First things first - what counts as babble? You’ve probably heard your baby making all sorts of interesting sounds, and using many of those sounds to communicate with you. You know which cry means “I’m hungry” and which one means “change my diaper!”. You may also be hearing things like laughter and blowing raspberries and vowel sounds like “ooo” and “aaa”. But babble, specifically, is a vocalization that consists of consonant and vowel combinations. They begin in reduplicated form in which the same consonant-vowel combination is repeated multiple times (e.g., “ba ba ba ba”), and then, as your child gets better at combining sounds, will be variegated, meaning different consonant-vowel combinations (e.g., “ba di ma”). Babble is an incredibly important milestone because it represents a transition to more meaningful communication and the building of social relationships. It means that your baby is in the early stages of learning to use true speech sounds for communication. These sound combinations are very similar to those your baby will use when they produce the much anticipated first words. Research shows us that the onset of babble is a strong predictor of a babies first words.
Babble is an incredibly important milestone because it represents a transition to more meaningful communication and the building of social relationships.
What’s the point?
Basically, babble represents your baby beginning to practice the sounds that will later be used in speech. Initially, when babies begin babbling, it appears to have no purpose, just random sounds produced at random times. Although this might not have a specific communicative purpose, this random babbling is incredibly important for your baby’s overall ability to communicate. This type of sound play is allowing your baby to practice combining different sounds which will eventually allow them to combine sounds into meaningful words. It’s like learning to play the piano - initially you have no timing and coordination and it might sound like random notes and a random tapping of keys. But eventually (with enough practice) it will sound like a familiar melody. As soon as your fingers have the coordination and dexterity to execute a sequence of notes correctly you can move from playing chopsticks to Bethoven. Similarly, the more your child practices combining various consonants and vowels, the better control they will have over their articulators (i.e., the tongue, lips, jaw, etc. that allow us to produce clear speech). Just like having control over your fingers to play a tune on the piano.
You will notice that as you speak, your baby watches your face closely. This is how they learn to produce sounds themselves and will associate the movement of your lips and tongue with the sounds they hear. This is why consonant sounds like /b/, /p/, and /m/ are typically the first to emerge. Go to a mirror and watch yourself say “mom”. You will see something very clear - your lips are closed while you make the sound /m/! Now watch yourself say “car” - not so clear is it? The /k/ sound and especially the /r/ sound typically develop later than /m/.
“The more your child practices combining various consonants and vowels, the better control they will have over the articulators . Just like having control over your fingers to play a tune on the piano.”
Development of babble
Eventually your baby will produce a range of different consonant sounds, but will ultimately decide on a few favorites - consonants that are produced more frequently and repetitively. Long strings of babble will then turn into shorter utterances, more similar to adultlike words. Your baby is always listening, and the more language he is exposed to, the easier it will be to mimic your words.
You will also start to hear changes in intonation and stress in your baby’s babble. For example, some syllable strings might end with a rising intonation, as if your baby were asking a question. Another important thing to pay attention to - pauses. Your baby might produce a long string of babble, then stop and look at you, as if waiting for a response. This is because they are learning how to take conversational turns and converse with you. Be sure to talk back - your baby will notice! Babies understand that their babble can get a reaction out of you. This interesting study shows us that babies can use their babble to re-engage parents and even manipulate the way you are interacting with them. Pretty amazing!
What can you do to help?
Since babbling is an important stepping stone to language (and those long awaited first words!) it should be constantly reinforced and encouraged. Here are a few tips and strategies to encourage this important development in your child:
Talk, talk, and talk some more! Seriously, you can’t talk too much. Talk about what you’re doing throughout the day (“Let’s get out the coffee! We need to scoop the coffee, and then get some water, and then push the button”, “Time to get the bath going. Turn on the water - make sure its warm. Then we need some bubbles!”, “Look at all these apples. Should we get some apples? I love apples. Daddy likes apples. Let’s put them in a bag”). Talk about anything and everything. This might feel strange at first, since your baby isn’t going to talk back quite yet, but I promise you - the more they hear the better!
Encourage sound play and imitation. If your baby starts babbling while pointing to something or during play with a certain toy, you can probably take a guess at what they are trying to communicate - even if the babbling sounds nothing like the actual word! For example, if they say “ba ba” while pointing to your dog (even though “ba ba” sounds nothing like “dog”), you can say, “Doggie! Say hi to the doggie!” (or some variation of that, using the word “dog”). Babies like to know that you are paying attention to what they are “saying” and that reinforcement goes a long way! Think of yourself as an interpreter (and if you have no idea what they are trying to say, that’s ok too - just take a guess). Even if those random sounds don’t mean anything, it’s ok if you think they do! You are reinforcing sound play and language development.
Use your daily routines to model language. Routines are a great way to model vocabulary because your words can be consistent and repetitive. Everyday at bath time you can model words like bath, bubbles, water, soap, etc. Everyday at mealtime you can model words like eat, yum, spoon, really whatever you want!
Babble back! If your baby starts babbling, imitate them and babble back. This initiates the reciprocal conversational turn taking that will be so important in building language and social skills. Don’t worry that you aren’t modeling real words. Babble is a crucial skill and you are helping your baby to build it.
Be repetitive. If you hear your baby imitate a sound that you make, keep making it! This makes the sound even easier for your baby to imitate again and again and helps to reinforce their imitation.
READ! Reading is a great way to model lots and lots of new words and sounds. You don’t even have to read each book word for word. Just point to the pictures and talk about them. And guess what? If you get sick of your baby’s books, you can even read a magazine or a novel! Just read it out loud and you are still providing excellent exposure to new sounds and words.
Talk, talk, and talk some more!
Remember, babies develop according to their own timeline, but if you think your child is late to start to babble, consult your child’s healthcare providers to discuss your concerns. And stay tuned for a new course covering fine motor, gross motor, and speech/language development for babies from birth through 12 months. This course is in collaboration with my good friend and fantastic occupational therapist Bethany DeJarnatt of Little Chicks. In this course, I will be covering strategies for enhancing language development, cognitive development, and play skills in your baby’s first year, including the all important babbling milestone, and much, much more!
For further reading, check out the articles below:
Franklin, B., Warlaumont, A. S., Messinger, D., Bene, E., Nathani Iyer, S., Lee, C. C., & Oller, D. K. (2014). Effects of parental interaction on infant vocalization rate, variability and vocal type. Language Learning and Development, 10(3), 279-296.
Goldstein, M. H., Schwade, J. A., & Bornstein, M. H. (2009). The value of vocalizing: Five‐month‐old infants associate their own noncry vocalizations with responses from caregivers. Child development, 80(3), 636-644.
Iyer, S. N., & Oller, D. K. (2008). Prelinguistic vocal development in infants with typical hearing and infants with severe-to-profound hearing loss. The Volta Review, 108(2), 115.
Iverson, J. M., Hall, A. J., Nickel, L., & Wozniak, R. H. (2007). The relationship between reduplicated babble onset and laterality biases in infant rhythmic arm movements. Brain and language, 101(3), 198-207.
Majorano, M., Vihman, M. M., & DePaolis, R. A. (2014). The relationship between infants’ production experience and their processing of speech. Language Learning and Development, 10(2), 179-204
McGillion, M., Herbert, J. S., Pine, J., Vihman, M., DePaolis, R., Keren‐Portnoy, T., & Matthews, D. (2017). What paves the way to conventional language? The predictive value of babble, pointing, and socioeconomic status. Child development, 88(1), 156-166.