From babbling to speech – the role of linguistics activities and the initial development of oral language to hearing impaired children

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to reflect about the importance of linguistics experience – especially babbling – to the development of speech in the first year of life, in the context of deafness. The establishment of sensorial-motor connections in the first months of babbling plays an important role in the acquisition of speech. Method: Six sensorial-neural hearing impaired children were observed in two different situations – (a) mother-child video recording in regular three – month intervals; (b) assessment of the phonological inventory with E.R.T. test (Teixeira, 1985). The six children were adapted with hearing aid or cochlear implanted. Average time for adaptation was 27 months. For all children, the communication mode was oral language, except children implanted later. The data were presented in the form of individual inventories in order to easy the comparative analysis with inventories of hearing children at the same age and sociocultural group, speaking Portuguese (PDFP). Results: All children showed delay in their phonological acquisition. Delay was more significant in children adapted later or for whom babbling did not occur. Conclusion: Results corroborate recent theories that defend the importance of babbling as well as that of perception in speech development.