Children's first words
October 19th 2007 00:48
So what are the first words that English-speaking babies learn?
Firstly, I'm not sure that the very first word is usually "mummy" or "daddy", although children might be making "dadada" sounds from early on.
Secondly, I think the matter is subject to a lot of variation.
Thirdly, it depends on how you define "word". Does crying count as a word? Does non-verbal gesturing? Language acquisition seems to be more gradual than going from "not using words" to "using words".
Fourthly, I don't know if a large-scale study (as opposed to a bunch of individual case studies) has been done in a satisfactory way. But, for what it's worth: --
"The first words that children use describe their own experiences and their motivations... The people and actions that directly engage the child and the objects and events he genuinely cares about are most likely to be reflected in first words. These words... are more likely to become a part of his natural vocabulary than are abstract concepts like numbers, letters, colors or other experiences that are primarily important to adults."
-- James D MacDonald, "Guidelines for your child's first words"
"It turns out that younger babies learn words for new objects based on how interested they are in the object, whereas older babies attach more importance to whether the speaker is interested in the object. These findings suggest that [people desiring to expand babies' vocabularies] might want to talk more about what their babies are interested in rather than what they, the parents, are interested in."
-- "Children's earliest words stem from what interests them", Wednesday 22 March 2006
"The groundwork for acquiring speech starts as early as 7 or 8 months when infants begin babbling in an attempt to mimic the sounds in their environment. The first words (recognizable to caretakers) emerge between 12 and 18 months, and are usually words that are an important part of the child’s daily life, such as 'mama,' 'dada,' 'milk,' or 'dog' -- in every language." (emphasis added)
-- "Much more than babble", 2005
"Crying is the earliest form of infant vocalization. But after only a few weeks of experience with language, infants begin to vocalize in addition to crying: they coo. Infants generally begin to coo at about one month of age (Shaffer, 1999). Cooing is repeating vowel-like sounds such as 'oooooh' or 'aaaaah.' Infants coo when their parents or caregiver interact with them. At around 3 or 4 months, infants start to add consonant sounds to their cooing, and they begin to babble at between 4 and 6 months of age. Babbling consists of consonant and vowel sounds. Infants are able to combine these consonant and vowel sounds into syllable-like sequences, such as mamama, kaka, and dadadada (Berk, 2000; Shaffer, 1999). Through interacting with parents or caregivers by such cooing and babbling, infants develop a sense of the role of language in communication by the end of the first year. The linkage between communication and sound-making signals the onset of true language (Glover & Bruning, 1987).
In the beginning of the second year, children's first words emerge. The first words are also called 'holophrases' because children's productive vocabulary usually contains only one or two very simple words at a time, and they seem to utter single words to represent the whole meaning of an entire sentence (Shaffer, 1999). Children's first words are... most frequently nominals -- labels for objects, people, or events (Bukatko & Daehler, 1995). In addition, children's first words are quite contextual. They may use a single word to identify something or somebody under different conditions (such as saying 'ma' when seeing mother entering the room), to label objects linked to someone (saying 'ma' when seeing mother's lipstick), or to express needs (saying 'ma' and extending arms for wanting a hug from the mother)."
-- Mei-Yu Lu, "Language development in the early years"
"The beginning signs of communication occur during the first few days of life when an infant learns that a cry will bring food, comfort, and companionship. The newborn also begins to recognize important sounds in his or her environment. The sound of a parent or voice can be one important sound. As they grow, infants begin to sort out the speech sounds (phonemes) or building blocks that compose the words of their language. Research has shown that by six months of age, most children recognize the basic sounds of their native language.
As the speech mechanism (jaw, lips, and tongue) and voice mature, an infant is able to make controlled sound. This begins in the first few months of life with 'cooing,' a quiet, pleasant, repetitive vocalization. By six months of age, an infant usually babbles or produces repetitive syllables such as 'ba, ba, ba' or 'da, da, da.' Babbling soon turns into a type of nonsense speech (jargon) that often has the tone and cadence of human speech but does not contain real words. By the end of their first year, most children have mastered the ability to say a few simple words. Children are most likely unaware of the meaning of their first words, but soon learn the power of those words as others respond to them.
By eighteen months of age, most children can say eight to ten words."
-- "Speech and language developmental milestones"
Incidentally, if you're interested in early identification of possible speech disorders, here's a checklist (of the "Your child is likely to be doing x by age y" variety).
The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, 1995, by David Crystal:
"The earliest stage is hardly like grammar at all, as it consists of utterances which are just one word long, such as Gone, Dada, Teddy, and Hi. About 60 per cent of these words have a naming function, and about 20 per cent express an action. Most children go through this stage from about 12 to 18 months. It is often called a holophrastic stage, because the children put the equivalent of a whole sentence into a single word."
Crystal goes on to cite a study, C Stoel-Gammon and JA Cooper, "Patterns of early lexical and phonological development", Journal of child language, 1984, vol 11, pp 247-71:
"Most children have a spoken vocabulary of at least 50 words by the age of 18 months. Here is one such list, collected as part of a language acquisition study in the 1980s. In fact it took Will 6.5 months to reach his half-century. Notice his liking for repeated items (quack-quack, beep-beep). Notice, too, how far mama and daddy are down his list -- contrary to popular belief, these are not usually a child's first words. Don't throw is written as two words, but Will pronounced it as if it were a single unit."
The list is:
"Children learn the power of communication before they learn to talk. Most parents report that their child can let them know that he/she needs help or wants an object out of reach by 8 to 9 months. By 12 months most parents report that their child can get them to notice interesting objects."
"Children use gestures before they use words. Children learn the following conventional gestures, usually in the order listed: giving, pushing away, raising arms, showing, reaching, waving, pointing, shaking head no, nodding head yes. Most parents report that their child gives objects, shows objects and waves by 10 to 11 months. By 12 months, most children point to objects and use at least 6 of the conventional gestures listed. Shaking and nodding head are equivalent to the words no and yes, and usually develop along with children's first spoken words. By 19 to 20 months, most children nod their head to indicate yes."
"A child's ability to use sounds is the strongest predictor of language skills a year later. Most children use sounds to get attention or help by 8 to 9 months. Many sounds at this age are only vowel sounds, but most parents report that their child uses 1 or 2 consonants and sometimes strings consonant sounds together by 8 to 9 months. The 10 earliest sounds to develop, listed in developmental order, are: m, n, b, d, g, w, l, y, s, and sh. When given a list of these 10 sounds, most parents report that their child uses at least 3 sounds by 12 months, 4 sounds by 15 to 16 months, and 6 sounds by 19 to 20 months."
"Children usually understand more words than they can say. The first word that children usually recognize is their name. Most parents report that by 8 to 9 months their child often looks or turns toward them when they call their child's name. Parents can reliably report how many words their child understands if given a list of words to choose from. When given a list of the 36 most common early words that children understand, most parents report that their child can understand (without gestures) at least 4 words by 12 months, 18 words by 15 to 16 months, and 30 words by 21 to 22 months."
"Children usually use their first word around their first birthday and can use dozens before their second birthday. Most parents report that their child uses 1 to 3 words by his/her first birthday. Parents can reliably report how many words their child uses if given a list of words to choose from. When given a list of the 36 most common early words that children use, most parents report that their child uses 1 word by 12 months, 5 words by 13 to 14 months, 10 words by 17 to 18 months, and 21 words by 21 to 22 months. These are not necessarily all the words the child uses, but a quick and reliable way to index word use."
"Knowing how to use objects helps children learn the names of objects. Many of the most common first words are names for objects that the child uses. Knowing what to do with an object, first to use it functionally (e.g., drinking with a bottle), and then in play (feeding a stuffed animal with a bottle), helps children learn names for objects. A child's use of objects is also an important predictor of language development."
For more info on Lisa Simpson's first word, check out the Wikipedia entry, in which it's also mentioned that Bart's first word was "Ay Caramba" (after seeing Homer and Marge have sex), and Maggie's first word was "Daddy".
Firstly, I'm not sure that the very first word is usually "mummy" or "daddy", although children might be making "dadada" sounds from early on.
Secondly, I think the matter is subject to a lot of variation.
Thirdly, it depends on how you define "word". Does crying count as a word? Does non-verbal gesturing? Language acquisition seems to be more gradual than going from "not using words" to "using words".
Fourthly, I don't know if a large-scale study (as opposed to a bunch of individual case studies) has been done in a satisfactory way. But, for what it's worth: --
***
-- James D MacDonald, "Guidelines for your child's first words"
***
"It turns out that younger babies learn words for new objects based on how interested they are in the object, whereas older babies attach more importance to whether the speaker is interested in the object. These findings suggest that [people desiring to expand babies' vocabularies] might want to talk more about what their babies are interested in rather than what they, the parents, are interested in."
-- "Children's earliest words stem from what interests them", Wednesday 22 March 2006
***
"The groundwork for acquiring speech starts as early as 7 or 8 months when infants begin babbling in an attempt to mimic the sounds in their environment. The first words (recognizable to caretakers) emerge between 12 and 18 months, and are usually words that are an important part of the child’s daily life, such as 'mama,' 'dada,' 'milk,' or 'dog' -- in every language." (emphasis added)
-- "Much more than babble", 2005
***
Lisa's first words included 'Bart', 'David Hasselhoff' and 'Homer'
In the beginning of the second year, children's first words emerge. The first words are also called 'holophrases' because children's productive vocabulary usually contains only one or two very simple words at a time, and they seem to utter single words to represent the whole meaning of an entire sentence (Shaffer, 1999). Children's first words are... most frequently nominals -- labels for objects, people, or events (Bukatko & Daehler, 1995). In addition, children's first words are quite contextual. They may use a single word to identify something or somebody under different conditions (such as saying 'ma' when seeing mother entering the room), to label objects linked to someone (saying 'ma' when seeing mother's lipstick), or to express needs (saying 'ma' and extending arms for wanting a hug from the mother)."
-- Mei-Yu Lu, "Language development in the early years"
***
"The beginning signs of communication occur during the first few days of life when an infant learns that a cry will bring food, comfort, and companionship. The newborn also begins to recognize important sounds in his or her environment. The sound of a parent or voice can be one important sound. As they grow, infants begin to sort out the speech sounds (phonemes) or building blocks that compose the words of their language. Research has shown that by six months of age, most children recognize the basic sounds of their native language.
As the speech mechanism (jaw, lips, and tongue) and voice mature, an infant is able to make controlled sound. This begins in the first few months of life with 'cooing,' a quiet, pleasant, repetitive vocalization. By six months of age, an infant usually babbles or produces repetitive syllables such as 'ba, ba, ba' or 'da, da, da.' Babbling soon turns into a type of nonsense speech (jargon) that often has the tone and cadence of human speech but does not contain real words. By the end of their first year, most children have mastered the ability to say a few simple words. Children are most likely unaware of the meaning of their first words, but soon learn the power of those words as others respond to them.
By eighteen months of age, most children can say eight to ten words."
-- "Speech and language developmental milestones"
Incidentally, if you're interested in early identification of possible speech disorders, here's a checklist (of the "Your child is likely to be doing x by age y" variety).
***
The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, 1995, by David Crystal:
"The earliest stage is hardly like grammar at all, as it consists of utterances which are just one word long, such as Gone, Dada, Teddy, and Hi. About 60 per cent of these words have a naming function, and about 20 per cent express an action. Most children go through this stage from about 12 to 18 months. It is often called a holophrastic stage, because the children put the equivalent of a whole sentence into a single word."
Crystal goes on to cite a study, C Stoel-Gammon and JA Cooper, "Patterns of early lexical and phonological development", Journal of child language, 1984, vol 11, pp 247-71:
"Most children have a spoken vocabulary of at least 50 words by the age of 18 months. Here is one such list, collected as part of a language acquisition study in the 1980s. In fact it took Will 6.5 months to reach his half-century. Notice his liking for repeated items (quack-quack, beep-beep). Notice, too, how far mama and daddy are down his list -- contrary to popular belief, these are not usually a child's first words. Don't throw is written as two words, but Will pronounced it as if it were a single unit."
The list is:
| 1. uh-oh
2. alldone 3. light 4. down 5. shoes 6. baby 7. don't throw 8. moo 9. bite 10. three 11. hi 12. cheese 13. up 14. quack-quack 15. oink-oink 16. coat 17. beep-beep 18. keys 19. cycle 20. mama 21. daddy 22. siren sound 23. grrr 24. more 25. off | 26. tick tock
27. ball 28. go 29. bump 30. pop-pop (fire) 31. out 32. heehaw 33. eat 34. neigh-neigh 35. meow 36. sit 37. woof-woof 38. bah-bah 39. hoo-hoo (owl) 40. bee 41. tree 42. mimi (ferry) 43. s (snake) 44. ooh-ooh (monkey) 45. yack-yack (people talking) 46. hohoho (Santa) 47. bye-bye 48. doll 49. kite 50. Muriel |
***
There's something called the "First Words Project" (based in Florida). If I understand rightly, its main focus is early identification of speech disorders, and it has surveyed some 600 families to find out what's "normal". Here's an extract:
"Children use gestures before they use words. Children learn the following conventional gestures, usually in the order listed: giving, pushing away, raising arms, showing, reaching, waving, pointing, shaking head no, nodding head yes. Most parents report that their child gives objects, shows objects and waves by 10 to 11 months. By 12 months, most children point to objects and use at least 6 of the conventional gestures listed. Shaking and nodding head are equivalent to the words no and yes, and usually develop along with children's first spoken words. By 19 to 20 months, most children nod their head to indicate yes."
"A child's ability to use sounds is the strongest predictor of language skills a year later. Most children use sounds to get attention or help by 8 to 9 months. Many sounds at this age are only vowel sounds, but most parents report that their child uses 1 or 2 consonants and sometimes strings consonant sounds together by 8 to 9 months. The 10 earliest sounds to develop, listed in developmental order, are: m, n, b, d, g, w, l, y, s, and sh. When given a list of these 10 sounds, most parents report that their child uses at least 3 sounds by 12 months, 4 sounds by 15 to 16 months, and 6 sounds by 19 to 20 months."
"Children usually understand more words than they can say. The first word that children usually recognize is their name. Most parents report that by 8 to 9 months their child often looks or turns toward them when they call their child's name. Parents can reliably report how many words their child understands if given a list of words to choose from. When given a list of the 36 most common early words that children understand, most parents report that their child can understand (without gestures) at least 4 words by 12 months, 18 words by 15 to 16 months, and 30 words by 21 to 22 months."
"Children usually use their first word around their first birthday and can use dozens before their second birthday. Most parents report that their child uses 1 to 3 words by his/her first birthday. Parents can reliably report how many words their child uses if given a list of words to choose from. When given a list of the 36 most common early words that children use, most parents report that their child uses 1 word by 12 months, 5 words by 13 to 14 months, 10 words by 17 to 18 months, and 21 words by 21 to 22 months. These are not necessarily all the words the child uses, but a quick and reliable way to index word use."
"Knowing how to use objects helps children learn the names of objects. Many of the most common first words are names for objects that the child uses. Knowing what to do with an object, first to use it functionally (e.g., drinking with a bottle), and then in play (feeding a stuffed animal with a bottle), helps children learn names for objects. A child's use of objects is also an important predictor of language development."
***
For more info on Lisa Simpson's first word, check out the Wikipedia entry, in which it's also mentioned that Bart's first word was "Ay Caramba" (after seeing Homer and Marge have sex), and Maggie's first word was "Daddy".
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Comment by Damo
I have been through this 5 times.
I spent hour brainwashing all my kids to say dad.
Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
My condolences.
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
mis
Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
Encourage word play
by Jane Barry
Q. My 19-month-old daughter is just starting to talk and she tends to say only the beginning of a word eg "do" for dog, "buh" for bird. I am wondering if this is normal. We are bringing her up in a bilingual family.
A. There is huge individual variation in rates of speech and language development with genetics, gender, environment, hearing and exposure all playing vital roles.
By the age of 18 months most children can say around eight to 10 simple words, but not always clearly.
We look for an attempt to mimic or say the correct sound at this age, rather than focus on it always being right.
Vowel sounds are the first to develop as well as words starting with p, h, m and n.
Toddlers tend to have the initial letter and syllable right, as she does, then drop off before completing the word. This is a normal part of speech development and generally not an indication of delay within the second year. Studies show that children who grow up in bilingual households tend to develop each individual language more slowly than those who are raised with a single language.
However, they usually catch up to their peers very quickly and generally have no problems with comprehension or fluency.
You are giving her a valuable gift by exposing her to a diversity of language at this early age when she is most receptive. Praise her attempts with gentle correction where necessary.
Read to her every day, sing songs and nursery rhymes and chat to her all the time about what you're doing.
Jane Barry is a registered nurse, midwife and child health nurse. Send questions to parentingadvice@telstra.com. The advice offered is general and not a substitute for individual, professional assessment and guidance.