Stage 1: Reflexive crying and vegetative sounds

• occurs from birth - 2 months

• wide variety of reflexive vocalizations such as; crying, coughing, grunting, and burping

• these sounds appear to be automatic responses based on the infants physical state

Stage 2: Cooing and laugher or controlled phonations

• occurs from 1 - 4 months

• cooing sounds are produced during comfort states

• vowel like sounds that occasionally have consonant approximates

• 12 weeks + there is less crying and primitive/vegatative sounds

• sustained laughter emerges around 16 weeks +

Stage 3: Vocal play or expansion

• occurs from 3 - 8 months

• longer production of sound segments

• steady states of prolonged vowel or consonant-like production

• more extreme variations in loudness and pitch

Stage 4: Basic cannonical babbling: reduplicated babbling and non-reduplicated/variegated babbling

• occurs from 5 - 10 months

• cannonical babbling is a collective term for reduplicated and non-reduplicated/variegated babbling

• reduplicated babbling: similar strings of consonant-vowel production. Vowel sounds may vary slightly but the consonant production will remain consistent

• non-reduplicated/variegated babbling: variation of both consonants and vowels. Smooth tranisitons between consonants and vowels.

Stage 5: Advanced Forms / Jargon

• occurs from 9 - 18 months

• Jargon: strings of babbled utterances that are characterized by intonation, rhythm, and pausing

• mimics adult-like conversation with no real meaning

It is common for these stages to overlap, as well as for the child to continue babbling into the time of their first words

(Bauman-Waengler, 2020)