This study constitutes the beginning of a longitudinal investigation of phonological development of four children from birth to 2 years. Little variation was found in mean fundamental frequency. Duration, within-utterance range and variability did show developmental change. (RM)

Vocalizations of two female infants, recorded over a five-week period after the first emergence of cooing were studied. It was found that the features of the more primitive sound types regrouped themselves in comfort sounds. The implications for theories of prespeech development are discussed. (EJS)

This research disputes the traditional position on babbling by showing that the phonetic content of babbled utterances exhibits many of the same preferences for certain kinds of phonetic elements and sequences that have been found in the production of meaningful speech by children in later stages of language development. (Author/RM)

Selected aspects of early phonological development are described, and eight important characteristics are suggested. It is held that the child plays a highly active, creative role in the acquisition process. The child's early vocables constitute a connecting link between babbling and adult-modeled speech; the child's phonological systems for…

Infant's crying may have an important mediating role in the formation of attachment behavior. The earliest vocalizations are discussed in terms of an acoustic communications model in which the baby's vocal repertoire becomes incorporated into a closed-loop, feedback system with his mother. Certain pre-lingual "signals" may be associated with those…

This paper offers some ideas on the types of behavior that can be considered precursors to language and that also lay the foundations for logic, mathematics, physics, etc. The paper posits the problem of whether a theory of language must be formulated before one can formulate a theory of language acquisition, or whether the reverse is true. The…

The significance of three mothers' speech for their infants' language development is considered in a continuing longitudinal study. The study began when the children (two females and one male) were 5 and 6 months of age and will continue until the subjects are 3 years old. In the speech data reported the children were from 6 to 18 months of age.…

One of the most remarkable aspects of the babbling of some babies is that it is produced with intonation contours that sound very much like adult sentence melodies. This study reviews the literature and examines longitudinal data collected from seven children. Some of the non-adult-like syntactic uses made of intonation by children for…