Babbling babies that is! Did you know that the cute cooing of a young child is a predictor of both cognitive and social emotional development? In yesterday’s NY Times Health Section they tackled the babble, and helped further explain just how important “ba ba ba” really is to a child’s development. When a baby isn’t babling it is a red flag for something going wrong in the home (not enough exposure to words), in the hearing (a hearing loss) or perhaps in the brain (receptive or processing difficulties).
By four to six months you should begin to hear these sounds, and as they progress and develop they will continue to sound more like spoken words (first words occur around one year of age). If you are noticing that your child is not making these noises, we encourage you to ask your pediatrician or speech-language pathologist and to help track the progress of the sounds your child makes.