Description:

Speaker: Carol Stoel-Gammon, PhD, Professor Emerita, Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington

Talk title: Coos, Babbles, and Early Words: The Importance of
Prelinguistic Development in Learning to Talk

Prelinguistic vocalizations and communicative interactions during the first year of life provide the foundation for subsequent development of speech and language in infants with typical development. During this period, babies hear their own babbled productions allowing them to link their own articulatory movements with the resulting acoustic signal. They also become aware of phonological patterns of the ambient language and begin to recognize similarities between what they say and what they hear. With the onset of consonant-vowel babble, vocalizations begin to resemble words of their language in terms of phonetic repertoire, timing patterns, and syllable shapes. The presence of these features influences input from caretakers who pay particular attention to, and are more likely to respond to, a baby’s speech-like productions. This presentation will outline the patterns of prelinguistic vocal development in infants with typical development and document longitudinal links between the quantity and quality of prelinguistic vocalizations and (a) the growth of vocabulary and (b) the acquisition of phonology. Patterns of prelinguistic and early linguistic development of three groups of infants/toddlers with atypical speech-language development – late talkers; infants with cleft palate; infants with hearing loss – will be presented, along with approaches to assessing prelinguistic vocal development and strategies for early intervention.

Sponsored by: The Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The Taylor Lecture Series and Innovation Fund