Short communication
Infants’ vocalizations at 6 months predict their productive vocabulary at one year

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101588Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • We investigated infant vocalizations as a predictor of later language skills.

  • Infant vocalizations were tested at 6 months and language skills at 12 months.

  • Infants vocalizing more at 6 months had a larger expressive vocabulary at 12 months.

  • Vocalizations were associated with later expressive, but not receptive language.

Abstract

Long before their first words, children communicate by using speech-like vocalizations. These protophones might be indicative of infants’ later language development. We here examined infants’ (n = 56) early vocalizations at 6 months (vocal reactivity scale of the IBQ-R) as a predictor of their expressive and receptive language at 12 months (German version of the CDI). Regression analyses revealed vocalizations to significantly predict expressive, but not receptive language. Our findings in German-learning 6-month-olds extend previous predictive evidence of early vocalizations reported for older infants. Together these findings are informative in light of early assessments monitoring typical and atypical language development.

Keywords

Infant vocalizations
Protophones
Expressive language
Receptive language
Parent report questionnaire
Development

Cited by (0)

1

These authors contributed equally.