Phonetic development in early infancy: a study of four Swedish children during the first eighteen months of life

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe present paper presents data on the phonetic development of four normal Swedish infants, who were audiorecorded bi-weekly in their homes from 0;1 to 1;5. Our results show five distinct stages in the development of early vocalizations: the glottal stage, the velar/uvular stage, the vocalic stage, the reduplicated consonant babbling stage and the variegated consonant babbling stage. The results are based on auditory analysis of selected parts of the material. A comparison is made of this developmental pattern with studies of infants raised in other linguistic communities. The results of this comparison support the claim that babbling follows a universal developmental pattern.