A 7 months old child makes vocalisations using of consonants and vowels. He is communicating using :

Correct option is D

At around 7 months of age, children typically engage in babbling, a stage where they produce repetitive consonant-vowel combinations such as "ba-ba" or "da-da." Babbling is a crucial developmental milestone that lays the foundation for speech and language acquisition. Unlike cooing, which involves simple vowel sounds, babbling incorporates both consonants and vowels, demonstrating the child's growing control over their vocal apparatus. This stage helps in the development of phonemic awareness and prepares infants for more complex linguistic skills as they mature.

Information Booster

1. Precursor to Speech: Babbling serves as a stepping stone toward actual word formation.
2. Universal Phenomenon: Babbling occurs across all languages and cultures.
3. Social Interaction: Babies often babble more in response to interaction, showing early conversational skills.
4. Phonemic Exploration: Helps infants explore and practice the basic sounds (phonemes) of language.
5. Feedback Mechanism: Parental responses to babbling encourage further vocal experimentation.

Additional Knowledge

• Linguistic speech: Refers to the use of meaningful words and sentences, typically developing after the babbling stage around 12 months or later.
• Cooing: Appears around 6-8 weeks of age, consisting mainly of vowel-like sounds such as "ooo" or "ahh." It precedes babbling and indicates early vocal experimentation.
• Phonemes: The smallest units of sound in a language. Babbling includes phonemic experimentation but does not constitute the structured use of phonemes in linguistic contexts.
• Babbling: Characterized by repetitive consonant-vowel combinations and is a critical developmental stage for language acquisition. It often evolves into more complex vocalizations and eventually words.