The Role of Audition in Infant Babbling
Abstract
The traditional belief that audition plays only a minor role in infant vocal development depends upon evidence that deaf infants produce the same kinds of babbling sounds as hearing infants. Evidence in support of this position has been very limited. A more extensive comparison of vocal development in deaf and hearing infants indicates that the traditional belief is in error. Well-formed syllable production is established in the first 10 months of life by hearing infants but not by deaf infants, indicating that audition plays an important role in vocal development. The difference between babbling in the deaf and hearing is apparent if infant vocal sounds are observed from a metaphonological perspective, a view that takes account of the articulatory/acoustic patterns of speech sounds in all mature spoken languages.
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The timing of mothers' vocal responses influences the complexity of infant babble before first words emerge, thus providing a foundation for later language development.
“Critically, there is evidence that the timing of mothers vocal responses influences the complexity of infant babble before first words emerge [15,16] thus providing a foundation for later language development [40].”
From Effect of maternal depression on infant-directed speech to prelinguistic infants: Implications for language development (2020) · cites this paper as [40]
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“The synaptic weights are learned during a babbling phase meant to coarsely represent that typically experienced by a normally developing infant (e.g., Oller & Eilers, 1988).”
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“Critically, there is evidence that the timing of mothers vocal responses influences the complexity of infant babble before first words emerge [15,16] thus providing a foundation for later language development [40].”
Background
- Authors
- Oller, D. K., & Eilers, R. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Miami (US)
- ORCID
- Oller, D. Kimbrough
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1988-04
- Volume
- 59
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 441
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2009997110
- Cited by
- 580
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 52 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 29 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 8.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH 30634)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Hearing Impairment and Communication
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
- Keywords
- infant babbling, auditions, deaf infants, infant vocal development, syllable production
- MeSH terms
- Acoustics, Deafness, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Longitudinal Studies, Phonetics
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