Topic To Work On
6 months: Peter Juczyk, sensitivity to non-native contrasts reducing, vowels first, recognition of own name (check Saxton: CM thinks it's 7 months), babbling (canonical or reduplicated and variegated; jargoning)
At 6 months of age, babies begin to zoom in on the phonemes of their native language. In other words, they are no longer able to recognize the phonemes of foreign languages. This loss does, however, allow young children to ignore sounds that are unimportant to their language development, and sparks a learning process of communication using their native language. Bilingual babies also begin to lose recognition of phonemes unfamiliar to their native languages at this age, while simultaneously zooming in on the phonemes of both languages they are learning.
At the beginning of the stage of perception and comprehension, babies 6-7 months of age begin to recognize their own name. One’s name is probably the most frequent word a person hears. Therefore, it is one of the first words children are able to learn and comprehend. Using motherese, parents and adults often repeat a baby’s name numerous times while talking to them. For example, a mother may greet her baby in the morning by saying, “Good morning Suzie! How is Suzie doing this morning? Lets pick something out for you to wear today. Does Suzie want to wear this? Is Suzie ready for breakfast?", and so on. As a result of her mother's constant use of her name, Suzie begins to recognize "Suzie" as a word. More importantly, she realizes the word "Suzie" is her name, and thus she begins to respond to the sound of her name.
Around the age of 6 months, children enter into the developmental stage of babbling. There are two subtypes of babbling that children produce; reduplicated and variegated, both of which have a consonant vowel syllable pattern. Reduplicated oral babbling is when children verbalize the same consonant vowel syllable pattern repeatedly, such as bababa. In contrast, variegated oral babbling maintains the consonant vowel syllable patterns while implementing different phonemes in each syllable, for example, namadega. Notice that bababa and namadega lack meaning. This absence of meaning is the reason why these utterances are not considered to be words, but rather baby talk or child oral babbling.
Babbling is not restricted to verbal communication, but is also present in non-hearing children. This is called manual babbling. Like oral babbling, manual babbling has reduplicated and variegated subtypes. Reduplicated manual babbling is represented when children continuously repeat the same hand gesture. Slightly more complicated, variegated manual babbling makes use of minimal pairs that are distinguished based on palm direction, hand shape, location, and movement. Manual babbling also lacks meaning, and is the result of a child’s attempt to produce language.
References
McKee, C. (January 12 - April 5, 2012). Lecture Class by A. L. Glock [Typed Notes]. PSY/LING 341: Language Development, University of Arizona. Arizona, Tucson.
Saxton, Matthew. Child Language: Acquisition and Development. London: SAGE Publications, 2010. Print, (125-127).