Baby Babble

WRITTEN BY SAM DOOLITTLE | PHOTO ADP STUDIO

It’s Saturday morning and you hear your 3-year-old screaming at your 5-year-old and your dog barking at the delivery truck. Meanwhile, your infant is growling and blowing raspberries while throwing their breakfast at the cat. While you’re tempted to write this off as another chaotic morning, your infant is actively communicating with you (or the cat). Here’s what you need to know about an early phase of verbal communication called babbling.

What is Babbling?

Babbling is a form of verbal communication that is your baby’s way of establishing attachment and connection with their caregivers and environment. Babbling is essential for speech and language development. In this stage of development, babies experiment with how to create their first spoken words.

Pre-Babbling:

• Birth to 1 month: Primitive vocalization including crying and sighing.

• 1-3 months: Cooing, squealing, emerging giggles and vowel vocalization (e.g.: “ahh, uhh”).

• 3-4 months: Simple consonant and vowel sounds (e.g.: “gah-goo”).

Babbling Emerges:

Note that different types of babbling tend to overlap and present themselves at the same time.

• 4-6 months: Babbling and vocal play occurs.

Marginal babbling: Extends beyond making simple sounds. It is social and purposeful. It can be accompanied by vocal play, squealing, yelling, blowing raspberries, growling and cooing. This is often to gain the caregiver’s attention.

•6-9 months: Progression to early canonical babbling also known as reduplicated babbling.

Reduplicated babbling: Repeating syllables using the same consonant and vowel sounds (e.g.: “ba-ba, ma-ma, da-da”).

• 9-12 months: Progression to canonical babbling also known as variegated babbling.

Variegated babbling: Producing syllables using different consonant and vowel sounds (e.g.: “bah-duh-nuh” or “ma-ga-ga”). Adultlike intonation patterns begin to emerge.

• 12-18 months: Babbling progresses to jargon with real words appearing.

Jargon: Conversational babbling (e.g.: “ba-da-ma-nuh-ba mama”) with use of adult-like intonation patterns (e.g.: volume, pitch and rhythm). May include pausing, turn-taking and nonverbal forms of communication (e.g.: facial expressions and gestures). Real words begin to emerge here.

Concerns Regarding Babbling:

If you notice that your baby is not babbling, or started to babble but stopped, there may be a cause for concern. Talking with a speechlanguage pathologist will help you address any speech and language concerns.

As parents and caregivers, we want to encourage speech and language development at an early age. This is done by playing or reading to your child, babbling back and forth with them, talking out loud about your own day, limiting screen time, keeping up with your child’s well check visits and seeking help if you have questions or concerns.

Sam Doolittle and Alyssa Lundquist are speech therapists at Lone Peak Pediatrics. They both specialize in early speech and language development. Lone Peak Pediatrics also offers services for feeding, lactation, orofacial myofunctional therapy, neurodiverse autism intervention, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and school-age learning intervention.

If you notice that your baby is not babbling, or started to babble but stopped, there may be a cause for concern. Talking with a speechlanguage pathologist will help you address any speech and language concerns.