When a child begins to coo and coo: stages of pronunciation of sounds, how to teach cooing and speaking

When does a child start to coo and gurgle?

Booming and croaking appears soon after birth and progresses through several stages. A newborn baby speaks only by screaming. Then, by the month, the repertoire of sounds in children expands, and vocalization becomes more speechlike. Babies usually begin to say recognizable words when they are about 12 months old, although the humming may continue for some time afterward.

Booming and cooing can be seen as a precursor to language development, or simply as vocal experimentation. These first forms of sound production are the easiest for children because they contain natural, reflexive, mostly vowel sounds.

It is assumed that cooing occurs in all children acquiring language. Babies around the world follow general trends in humming and cooing. The differences that exist are a consequence of children's sensitivity to the characteristics of the language they constantly hear. Infants imitate the features of this language (intonation, tone, stress). The baby gurgles using the consonants and vowels that are most common in their parent language.

Babbling consists of a few sounds. This means that the baby is preparing to pronounce the basic sounds necessary to speak the language that he constantly hears.

If a child's cooing occurs in the first year, we can come to the conclusion that his speech is developing normally. As the baby grows and changes, the pronunciation of sounds also changes.

At what age does a child start to coo?

In the first month of life, the baby can only scream and groan. Screaming is the first stage of speech development. In a newborn baby, it is a prolonged sound of different vowel sounds, and the audible sound is determined by the cause of the child's cry. So, if the baby cried from pain, then a long vowel “o” will be heard. If the cry expresses joy or satisfaction, the vowel “a” will sound.

The second month of life is the time of cooing. The child tries to pronounce the vowels “a”, “ya”, “o”, “u”, “e”. But the pronunciation is guttural, so parents hear “ahu.” Babies actively coo when they not only see familiar faces and interesting toys, but also lie calmly in the cradle.

The cooing stage is short, lasting only 3-4 weeks. But it is extremely important for the child’s speech development.

The onset of cooing depends on the degree of development of the auditory, visual, and vocal organs. The baby observes the people around him and other sources of sounds and tries to repeat what he hears.

Timeline of typical vocal development

Infants follow a general pattern of vocal events during childhood. This timeline provides a general outline of expected events from birth to one year of age:

Cooing and humming usually lasts 6 - 9 months.
The babbling period ends around 12 months because this is the age when the baby begins to speak its first words.

However, some children may show greater variability and this timeline is a guide only.

from birth to 1 month, infants produce mainly sounds of pleasure, cries for help and reactions to the human voice;
At about 2 months, babies can already distinguish between different speech sounds and make something similar to “goose sounds” or grunting;
At about 3 months , babies begin to make elongated vowel sounds “oooo” and “aaaa” (the first ahu), and will respond vocally to the speech of others. They continue to produce predominantly vowel sounds;
at about 4 months , children can change their delivery and imitate the tones of adult speech;
for about 5 months, babies continue to experiment, trying to imitate some sounds made by adults;
Around 6 months, babies change volume, pitch and speed. When babies are 6 months old, they can finally control the opening and closing of the vocal tract. Having received this ability, babies begin to distinguish different sounds - vowels and consonants.

This age is often identified as the beginning of the canonical stage. During this stage, drones are reduplicated (doubled) sounds involving alternating vowels and consonants, such as "baba" or "bobo";

Around 7 months, babies can produce several sounds on one breath. They also recognize different tones;
at 8 months, babies can repeat individual syllables. They imitate the gestures and tonal quality of adult speech. Children also reproduce colorful humming. Various chatter contains mixtures of consonant and vowel combinations, such as "ka, da, boo, ba, mi, bou". The variety of this babble differs from that of reduplicated babble in terms of the variation and complexity of the syllables produced;
Around 9–10 months, infants can imitate not speech, but speech-like sounds, if they are in the child’s repertoire. When children begin to coo, it begins to sound like their native language. The general structure of the syllables they produce is very closely related to the sounds of their native language, and this form of drone greatly anticipates the form of early words;
at 11 months , babies imitate the inflections, rhythms and expressions of speakers;
by 12 months, infants can usually speak one or more words. These words refer to the things they name. Children use them to attract attention or for a specific purpose. Babies continue to make walking sounds beyond their first words.

How to teach a child to coo and coo - from theory to practice

Knowing the theory, you can move directly to practice and understand what ways there are to teach a child to coo and coo. The baby’s speech, like his other skills in the first year of life, does not require any special teaching methods. The technique here will come in handy closer to 2–3 years of age if the child does not speak normally. Then you will need to work with a specialist. At the early stages of development, the baby’s speech learning occurs in parallel with his general development. In general, if a child is completely healthy, he will learn to walk and develop in accordance with what is inherent in nature.

However, especially for those who are directly concerned with the early development of a child and want to work with the baby, as they say, “from the cradle,” we will give several simple ways to teach a child to coo and coo.

How to teach a child to walk with the help of conversation, live communication and toys

Talk.

The first, simplest and most effective way of early speech development is communication with the child. From the very first days of life. Starting from the maternity hospital. Fortunately, it is now practiced for mother and baby to stay together, so no one bothers you to talk to the baby as soon as you find yourself together.

To quickly teach a child to coo and coo, any of your actions, for example, rocking the baby, swaddling, changing a diaper, can and should be accompanied by words. And you don’t need to think that a newborn baby only sleeps and eats. No! He perceives everything perfectly on a subconscious level, including your speech.

Lessons with toys. Month-old babies and older children are already looking at various toys with pleasure. Then how can you teach a child to walk in this case? The answer lies on the surface - by showing him the toys, you can briefly describe them verbally. For example, tell what shape they have, what color they are, and so on, whatever your imagination allows.

To teach a child to coo, you can also take the baby in your arms and carry him around the apartment, showing him where things are and be sure to name them. You can even describe it in simple words. You need to do the same as in the case of toys. Naturally, the baby will not yet fully understand what it is about, but he will hear your voice and will soon begin to respond to it with a thin “LA.”

Live communication. When the baby begins to babble, around 2.5 - 3 months, it is advisable to look into his eyes and smile when communicating with him. And rejoice at every sound spoken. Kids very subtly feel the mood of those who communicate with them and the happier the interlocutor is, the happier the baby will be.

There is a wonderful video on how to teach a child to coo and coo using personal example

How to teach a child to coo with the help of facial exercises, pronouncing sounds, asking questions and books for kids

Imitation.

When the baby’s speech becomes more varied, around 4–5 months, it is very good to use onomatopoeic elements. To quickly teach a child to coo and coo, you can pronounce the sounds that the baby makes many times. Children really like this game, and they are ready to try more and more. In this regard, the development of speech in twins occurs at a very fast pace, since they repeat not only after the adult, but also after each other.
Mimic exercises. When communicating with your baby, you can pronounce syllables and at the same time work your facial muscles in an exaggerated manner. Here you can depict how various animals talk. Very soon the baby will begin to repeat your sounds and movements. This game is good to use from 3 to 4 months.
Questions. To teach children how to romp, you can use the child’s involvement in active dialogue. From about 3 months, at this age, small children are already ready for active communication with adults; you can diversify the dialogue with questions.

It is clear that you will practically talk to yourself, and the children will only insert their first “Aha”, i.e. They will slowly begin to learn to coo and coo on their own. If you turn to them, as if thinking about how and what to do, and accompanying this with actions, this will contribute to the rapid accumulation of a passive vocabulary and the development of thinking. So this is what you need!

Books. Finally, to teach your child to coo early, you can use baby books. Early exposure to books contributes to the multifaceted development of children. You can read them from the cradle. This will diversify and enrich the child’s speech perception and develop his imaginative thinking. Also, older children, from 6 to 7 months old, can be shown puppet shows. Everything will be beneficial.

Finally, we decided to show another great video in which a child learns to coo and coo, and in this video we can hear the beginning of his speech

The transition from humming and cooing to tongue

Modern research supports the idea that babbling is directly related to language development.

According to this hypothesis, when a baby begins to say “aha,” this is a direct precursor to language. First, children produce universal sounds that exist in all parts of the world and in all languages.

Reduplicated humming produces several sounds, but only some of them (“ma-ma” and “pa-pa”), turning into “mom” and “dad,” are recognized as significant and, thus, are encouraged by parents, while the rest are not given attention as meaningless. This view is consistent with the assertion that anatomical changes in the vocal tract are very important, but implies that the social environment in which the infant is raised has a greater influence on language development.

When babies begin to coo, they pay close attention to their parents' reactions and perceive the feedback as approval of the sounds they make. This reinforcement through reflection helps babies focus their attention on specific features of sound. Social feedback promotes faster learning and earlier production of a variety of expanded words.

There is evidence that humming varies depending on the linguistic environment in which the child is raised. It has been observed that infants born in French-speaking environments exhibit more rising intonation compared to infants raised in English-speaking environments. This is probably due to differences between French and English intonation when speaking.

The order of consonants and vowels in the humming of Russian, English, Swedish, French and Japanese babies also appears to be similar to that of their native language. These results support another hypothesis suggesting that infant babbling resembles the phonetic characteristics of the child's native language due to exposure to speech.

When children are exposed to two languages, their babble resembles the language to which they are most exposed. The dominant language is the one that has the greatest impact on the child.

How is cooing different from humming?

By cooing it is common to understand the “speech” of a baby, consisting mainly of vowels. The baby seems to be singing them - it turns out “a-a-a”, “oo-oo-oo”, etc. The baby can make such sounds for quite a long time, especially if someone is talking to him at that moment.

Humming is more complex and includes consonant sounds (usually x, g, k). A combination of vowels and consonants also appears: agu, ky, khy, gu.

The peak development of this form of “speech” occurs around the third month of life. The sounds uttered during this period are quite conscious - this is how babies show their emotions and feelings to loved ones.

Walking is often accompanied by active gestures and facial expressions, blowing bubbles and drooling. Sounds can be reproduced by a child when he sees someone from his family, while listening to music, looking at his favorite toy, and sometimes spontaneously.

The next stage is babbling, characterized by the fact that the child begins to master the first syllables and say “ma”, “ba”, “da” and so on.

If the mother wants the baby to start cooing and cooing as early as possible, she needs to talk to the baby from the first days of life. The easiest way is to provide sound accompaniment for all actions, including dressing, bathing, etc.

It is better to immediately exclude deliberate distortion of pronunciation and lisp when communicating with a child - speech should be legible, clear, but calm and quiet.

Abnormal development

Typically, by 6 months of age, all normally developing babies will be babbling. However, infants with certain medical conditions or developmental delays may exhibit delayed or absent vocalization. For example, infants with autism may have a delay in vocalization, and in some cases may not vocalize at all. Babbling occurs less frequently in children with autism than in typically developing children, with a smaller range of syllables produced during the reduplicated stage of babbling.

Buzzing may also be delayed in children born with Down syndrome. The reduplication stage may appear 2 months later in babies with Down syndrome compared to other babies, although making sounds is similar to humming in normally developing babies.

The baby is a month old and he is still silent

There is no need to worry if a newborn is not cooing by the end of the first month, because they are not mechanical devices in which the pace of development is set. That is, every baby develops as he needs . At how many months does a baby start to coo is a very individual question. One baby begins to try to pronounce “aha” already at three weeks, while the other is still silent, but he will begin to delight others with pleasant sounds a little later. Silence may be due to the fact that the child will be silent by nature.

There are also cases when the baby began to gurgle quite early, but then suddenly fell silent . You shouldn’t stress yourself out and worry, as the baby is simply beginning the period of preparation for the next portion of speech skills. After a certain period of time, the hooting will return, but accompanied by laughter, squeaking and squealing. It also happens that sudden silence can be caused by a number of certain factors, for example, due to stress or poor health.

If your child is silent for a long time, you should seek help from a pediatrician . You should start worrying after eight months. Perhaps the baby has developed some problems with neurology or with the hearing aid. The pediatrician should refer the child to a specialist, for example, a neurologist or otolaryngologist, to determine the causes of delayed speech development and their treatment.

Buzzing in deaf children

Studies have been conducted to determine whether infants with hearing loss can produce typical vocal sounds.

Gurgling can appear at the same age and in similar forms in a hearing and deaf child, but further development of speech depends on the child’s ability to hear himself. For this reason, deaf children stop verbally babbling earlier than hearing children.

Children begin to babble if exposed to language, but vocal babbling may be delayed or absent altogether in deaf children.

After hearing aids are installed, hearing-impaired children begin to hear speech and babble, just like healthy babies do.

Deaf children are not only significantly behind in spoken language development compared to their hearing peers, but they also produce fewer noises. This suggests that auditory experience is essential for the development of spoken language.

How to teach a child to coo - the result

We examined the question of how to teach a child to coo and coo. In general, there is nothing super complicated here. No special techniques are required yet. The main thing for learning is to communicate with the baby as much as possible, sing him songs, read books, talk about what is around him, and introduce him to toys. And then soon you will notice how the baby began to respond to you, he began to make the first sounds - humming, then singing and babbling will appear. And everything will end with the appearance of the first words. This is what we should strive for when we begin to teach children to coo and coo.

Why children don't coo: reasons

Do not panic if your child is silent at 1-1.5 years old. Each baby is an individual, he has a certain temperament and hereditary factor. Everything is like in adults - some are more talkative, others are silent, but a healthy child always begins to gurgle.

You should be wary of the fact that if the child is already 7-8 months old, but clear sounds and syllables are not heard from him. In this case, you need to contact a neurologist, and if you suspect hearing problems, then an otolaryngologist.

The gushing period is short-lived. By 2-3 months of age, the baby masters howling. This is a more complex speech form - with the inclusion of consonant sounds: k, g, x. You can clearly hear: ahu, aha. Babies themselves enjoy their conversation, they can “chat”, expressing joy or frustration, or they can walk continuously in a completely emotionally calm state. If a child coos at 2-3 months of age, it means that development corresponds to age standards.

At 4-5 months of age, children try to reproduce the labial consonants “m”, “p”, “b”. The baby said “ma”, add a similar syllable to it and say “mom” so that your daughter or son repeats. Same with "ba" and "pa". He will quickly learn such important words in life, and as he grows up, he will constantly pronounce them.

At 8-12 months, the baby will clearly pronounce the first words of the same syllables.