babbling/first words

[Gordon, Peter]

OK here's my anecdote:  My god-daughter, at 10 months, regularly used 2 words referentially:  "Juice" and "Shoes".  Although these were similar -- both being produced with a very forceful burst -- the former clearly began with an affricate and the latter a fricative.  The more remarkable fact was that these words were only said in the presence of appropriate referents and could be elicited by pointing to each thing in the same session.  By 12 months, these words had dropped out of her repertoire completely as she began to work on the usual daddy/mommy business.  They did eventually re-emerge, but now were assimilated to the same: /du/ for both words, just like any other 16 month old.
 
 
Peter Gordon,
525 W 120th St. Box 180
Biobehavioral Sciences Department
Teachers College, Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
 
(212)  678-8162
 

________________________________

From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Nan Ratner
Sent: Tue 9/12/2006 8:12 PM
To: Annette Karmiloff-Smith; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org; Carol Stoel-Gammon
Subject: Re: babbling/first words



And then there are the atypical kids. My son, Adami, couldn't say Mama
for years, he said Nana instead, but managed "trash truck" much better,
as one of his first 10 words, although it came out without the /r/ and
/k/; however, the affricates and fricative came out just fine. Go
figure. He had SLI and some of the kids we followed in Rescorla and
Ratner (1996) also had weird initial phonemic inventories.

Nan


Nan Bernstein Ratner, Professor and Chairman
Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences
0100 Lefrak Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
nratner at hesp.umd.edu
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/facultyStaff/ratnern.htm
301-405-4213
301-314-2023 (fax)

>>> Carol Stoel-Gammon <csg at u.washington.edu> 09/12/06 5:41 PM >>>
As as been noted by many of the respondents, the first word of many 
children (including mine) is something other than daddy. It is true, 
however, that for American children, daddy is among the very first 
words. Based on data from the CHILDES data base, daddy is produced by

50% of children at age 11.48 months, while mommy is produced by 50% 
of children at 11.64 months. Other words on the CHILDES list reach 
the 50% criterion after 12.28 months.


************************************
Carol Stoel-Gammon, Ph.D.
Professor, Speech and Hearing Sciences
University of Washington
1417 N.E. 42nd Street
Seattle, WA 98105-6246

Phone: 206-543-7692
Fax: 206-543-1093
************************************




On Sep 12, 2006, at 12:40 AM, Annette Karmiloff-Smith wrote:

> Someone has asked me whether it is true that babies' first word is 
> Daddy and whether this is because the articulation position of D is

> easiest?  not sure either is true but would appreciated comments 
> from those who study this area.  Are the words for Daddy/Papa etc. 
> and Mummy/Maman etc. easier because there is no change of place of 
> articulation?  All thoughts on the topic most appreciated.
> thanks
> Annette K-S
>
>
> --
> ________________________________________________________________
> Professor A.Karmiloff-Smith, CBE, FBA, FMedSci,
> Head, Neurocognitive Development Unit,
> Institute of Child Health,
> 30 Guilford Street,
> London WC1N 1EH, U.K.
> tel: 0207 905 2754
> sec: 0207 905 2334
> http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/ich/html/academicunits/neurocog_dev/
> n_d_unit.html
>
>




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