Speech Sound Acquisition
Acquisition of Speech Sounds Milestones for Young Children
Children begin to acquire speech sounds right from the start of life. The process beginnings with phonation, then moves to cooing & gooing, exploration, canonical babbling, and finally variegated babbling before the first words appear. Read on below to find out which stage your child is at in the development.
Phonation (Using Their Voice), 0-1 month:
Makes reflex sounds like crying, burping, coughing, and sneezing.
Starts making other sounds similar to "mmm" sounds.
Cooing & Gooing, 2-3 months:
Begins using consonant vowel (CV) and vowel consonant (VC) structures.
Starts using back-of-the-mouth vowels (‘uh’, ‘oo’, ‘ah’).
Makes sounds with back-of-the-mouth consonants (‘k’, ‘g’, ‘ng’).
Exploration/Expansion, 4-6 months:
Gains more control of mouth and voice by playing with sounds (vocal play).
Squeals, growls, yells, and makes "raspberry" sounds with lips (‘p’, ‘b’, ‘m’).
Makes more varied sounds with vowels and consonants, these will vary daily and weekly.
Vowels that require turning on voice box become clearer (all vowels)
‘Marginal’ babbling starts (single CV, VC structure created)
Canonical Babbling (Repeating CV, VC structures), 7-9 months:
Uses CV structures that ‘sound’ more like adult speech.
Repeats the same sounds, like "baba" or "mama".
May add stops (‘b’, ‘p’), glides (‘r’, ‘l’) and nasal (‘m’, ‘n’) sounds to speech sound consonant inventory.
May start using vowel sounds like ‘eh’, ‘i’ and ‘uh’.
Uses fewer back sounds (like ‘g’ and ‘k’), and more front sounds (like ‘b’ and ‘d’).
Variegated Babbling (Combining Different CV, VC structures), 10-12 months:
Keeps using CV structures
Mixes up different sounds and structures into , like "bamaga" or "tikati"
Uses different ‘tones’ of voice and rhythms that sound like real speech
Common vowel sounds are ‘eh’, ‘uh’, ‘ar’, and ‘ah’.
Common consonants are ‘h’, ‘d’, ‘b’, ‘m’, ‘t’, ‘g’, ‘s’, ‘w’, ‘n’, ‘k’, ‘j’, and ‘p’.
These are ‘proto-speech’ milestones you can approximately expect by around from your younger one by 12 months of age.
Please note the above information is general in nature and is not intended as professional medical advice. Please seek an appointment with a registered speech-language pathologist if you are at all worried about your child's development.
References:
Oller, D.K. (1980). The emergence of the sounds of speech in infancy. In
G. Yeni-Komshian, J. Kavanagh, & C.A. Ferguson (Eds.), Child phonology:
Vol. 1: Production. New York: Academic Press.