6 months old, week 4

Juli sometimes tilted her head to one side as well as leaned sideway to see what was in there. Opened her arms, palms up especially when standing -- it was like her fad or something. Manually signing-like (difficult to capture it on video at the right time). Vocally and manually babbled. Made razzing visue/sound.

The emergence of canonical babbling

Canonical (reduplicated) babbling is usually identified with the onset of babbling at around 6-7 months. It consists of reduplicated syllables (i.e. "babababa").

To distinguish canonical babbling (e.g. "bababa") from the earlier marginal babbling (e.g. "ba"), canonical babbling includes syllables in a timing relationship that conforms to mature language restrictions.

The onset of the stage is relatively sudden, and many of these units are reduplicated (e.g. "bababa" and "dadada" in speech or "closing-opening-hand" and "batting-up-down" in signlan).

Ever since the first evening I was out for work, I showed Juli my black workbag to create an association of my long-hours absence with work. I explained to Juli mother drive, go-to work now. mother ix-me will-be home.

The ASL word work had been one of the most frequently used words in the past weeks. Dude went to work -- father go-to work. [bye-bye]. He came back home -- father work done/finish, now home! and such.

Videoclip: As I was preparing for work another evening, Grandma Z held Juli in arm and explained mother will go-to work. ix-she will come-back. (The first frame of the video showed "work" that I began videotaping a bit late.)

Then Juli babbled, probably imitating what Grandma Z signed. Among the babbles, one stood out distinctly was the ASL word work.

As I was about to leave, I explained to her again including the word work. Juli was producing what looked like "work".

That is, Juli picked up a pattern from our language and produced her first babble based on the pattern of the ASL word, "work".

Recognizing the difference between reflection and video

Juli's exploring the reflections hadn't stopped. Here is another one.

I was watching a documentary movie on my laptop. Juli was watching with me. But, I then realized she was watching something else.

The video was in full screen but there was black columns at both sides. Juli was looking at me in the reflection on the black surface.

What might be through her thought when she watched a juxtaposition of the video and the real-life reflection?

The critical period of babbling

Video: "The linguistic genius of babies" by Patricia Kuhl at TED Talk.

What does preserving a language really means? Record it and preserve it in archival? No. Teach a language to others? No.

To truly preserve a language is to speak (manually or vocally, depending on which language it is) to babies in a native environment, as shown an example in the video: a mother (one of 800 people in the world) speaks Koro to her baby.

Why? It has to do with your brain -- the critical period from birth to age seven.

A study shows that at 6-8 month old babies don't discriminate sounds of different language, but in an amazing short time, at 10-12 month old babies turn head to sounds of a language of their own culture. It is a 2 month critical period. They are absorbing certain sounds of the language and shaping in their brain.

Researchers compare each component of nonreferential babbles with the phonetic inventory of an adult signlan. Yonekawa (1984) suggested the number of primes in each parameter such as handshape, movement and location. In a participant, 29% of handshape, and 54% of movement inventory in adult JSL were used in non0referential gestures. discuss that nonreferential babbles with the phonetic inventory of adult JSL.

Petitto and Marentette (1991) showed that 32% of the handshape and 54% of the movement that made up the phonetic inventory of adult ASL were observed in manual babbling. These nonreferential gestures are produced before the onset of signed words.

Native-signlan people who are Deaf (with a capital letter of "D") around the world are truly living preservers, ranging from accurate sign production (or "pronunication") to pragmatics (contexts and discourse styles).

Understanding the difference between babbles and words

Studies (Petitto) show that the stages of language acquisition from birth to age 5 and beyond are identical in both visual-spatial modality and vocal-auditory modality.

You might wonder what's with those claims in the "baby sign language" discourse that infants acquire signs earlier than spoken words.

Older studies from a group of researchers (e.g. Bonvillian and others) used such methodological techniques as follows:

In a linguistic standard, if vocal productions within this period (syllabic babbling stage at 7-10 months) are not used referentially, they are considered babbling. But, in these studies, the "recognizable" manual productions were not used referentially by infants and they were misinterpreted as "first signs".

Likewise, we know that when a baby vocally babbles "ma-ma", "pa-pa", or such at 6-7 months, these babbles are not attached to the mother, grandpa, or such respectively. Babies understand the link between the word and its referent at later months (average at 12 months).

Let's look at a scenario: a mother signed "milk" and her baby duplicated it. She was excited, videotaping her baby's first manual production (closing and opening 5-handshape), uploaded it online, and headlined it "6 months old signing 'milk'".

The baby in the video was clearly babbling -- closing and opening hand repeatedly. It is equivalent to "bababa, bababa" in vocal form. The baby was not signing "milk", even though the movement and handshape are similar.

It is no difference in signlan and speech. But, often parents interpret an infant producing something (e.g. commonly "milk" or "more") in visual-spatial modality as "first sign", when in fact it is syllabic babbles. A syllabic structure of manual babbling is often mislabeled for a first sign.

References / suggested readings

Bénédicte de Boysson-Bardies. Developmental neurocognition: speech and face processing in the first year. Pp 366-369.

Phonological acquisition in sign language

Contrary to common belief, learning signs (or signed words) is not easier than speech in infants.

Scientific studies show evidence that language development is maturationally brain-controlled, regardless of modality (speech or signlan).

Phonology is the study of how the smallest units of language (i.e. phonemes in speech and primes in signlan) are organized in a language and how they are learned.

There are about 40 phonemes or sound units in English speech. They are the building blocks of the language (English).

On the other hand, there are five sets (parameters) of primes (the smallest units of language) in sign language: handshape, movement, location, palm orientation, and non-manual marker.

Each parameter has a number of primes: over 40 handshapes, a number of movements, a number of locations, palm orientations, and a number of non-manual marker.

Below explains some ASL phonological processes in infants compared to speech.

Phonological processes in infants: 0-6 months

For the first few months of life, babies produce vegetative sounds and later cooing sounds in speech. Likewise, they produce cooing visues in signlan.

6-12 months

Canonical (reduplicated) babbling begins to emerge at 6-7 months. Manual babbling stages occurs on the same timeline as vocal babbling (from marginal and canonical to variegated babbling).

Babies babble similar units all over the world. But, at 8 months, they babble a patterned set of units that are characteristic to a native language (whether ASL, English or any other language).

The reduplicated syllabic units "babababa" is a typical example in vocal canonical babbling. This parallels to "BABABA" (opening-and-closing movement of the hand) in manual babbling. Another common movement is batting -- moving up and down repeatedly.

The manual babbling sequence "BABABA" is often mistook for the first ASL word "milk". Manual babbling follows its own syllabic organization of a signed language.

The first handshapes in manual babbling that predominate in infants's early ASL productions are 5, index finger, B, A and fist (or in a linguistic term: 5, G, B, A, S respectively). Whereas, the early syllabic units (phonemes) in speech are: a, p, b, d.

Transition from manual babbling to first words occur at around 10 months, or as early as 8 months or as late as 16 months.

12-24 months

Toddlers begin with a small number of phonemes (sounds) in speech or primes (visues) in signlan to form a word.

For example, toddlers, who are exposed to a native signed language from birth, use these handshapes to form ASL words: B, C, O, A, S, 1 (index finger), and 5 (open handshape).

In speech, the consonant sounds are well established at this stage: m n p b t d w.

24-36 months

The following ASL handshapes of increasing complexity emerge at this stage: L, G, F, Q, D, Z, Y, I, J.

36-48 months

More handshapes increase complexity as follows: V, H, W, U, T, H, K, P, X, Y, R, E, M, N.

Language milestones

Not only the phonological processes in speech and signlan are somehow parallel, but also studies (Petitto) show that the milestones from babbling to multi-word are on the same timeline in both signlan and speech.

Regardless of the physical development, language milestones are controlled by the language-specific brain.

References / suggested readings

For more information about phonological acquisition by native-signlan children, below is a resource for further reading.

Boyes-Braem, P. (1973/1990). Acquisition of the handshape in American Sign Language. In V. Volterra & C. J. Erting (Eds.), From gesture to language in hearing and deaf children (pp. 107-127). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Conlin, K., Mirus, G. R., Mauk, C., & Meier, R. P. (2000). Acquisition of first signs: Place, handshape, and movement. In C. Chamberlain, J. Morford + R. I. Mayberry (Eds.), Language acquisition by eye (pp. 51-70). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Karnopp, Lodenir. (2002). Phonology acquisition in Brazilian Sign Language. In Gary Morgan and Bencie Woll (eds.), "Directions in Sign Language Acquisition". Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 29-53.

Lillo-Martin, Diane, et al. "The Acquisition of Spatially Organized Syntax" August 1985. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED262568.pdf

Marentette, P. & Mayberry, R. (2000). Principles for an emerging phonological system: A case study of language acquisition by eye. In C. Chamberlain, J. Morford & R. Mayberry (Eds.), Language Acquisition by Eye. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Marentette, Paula F. (1989) "Babbling in Sign Language: Implications for Maturational Processes of Language in the Developing Brain."
http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca/webclient/StreamGate?folder_id=0&dvs=1309727367741~997

Meier, Richard. (2005). The form of early signs: Explaining signing children's articulatory development. In Brenda Schick, Marc Marschark and Patricia Spencer (eds.), "Advances in the Sign Language Development of Deaf Children". pp. 202-230.

Gary Morgan, et al. "The first signs of language: phonological development in British Sign Language". City University, London. http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/g.morgan/Morgan%20BSL%20first%20signs%20final.pdf

"Wataru Takei. "How do Deaf infants attain first signs?"
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/2782/!via/oucontent/course/137/reader_b.pdf

Anne Baker, Benice Woll. Sign language acquisition. pp 41-? Chronology of sign language"

Laura Ann Petitto. "Bilingual signed and spoken language acquisition from birth: implications for the mechanisms underlying early bilingual language acquisition".
http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3psygs/04PSY315S/petittoA.pdf

Wataru Takei. "How Do Deaf Infants Attain First Signs?" Developmental Science, 4: 71-78.