What is the earliest age an actual baby can use his vocal chords to speak?

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You're asking about radically different things.

Age to communicate via the vocal cords? Zero.

All (normally developing) neonates can communicate via the vocal cords. Screaming, etc. Initially, there is basically one word: FIX-ME!!

As infants develop, they quickly are able to differentiate their screams/vocalizations. Some do this more than others and of course it's dependent on how well caregivers pick it up. One cry can mean "I'm hungry," another "I'm wet/need to pee," another "I need to be held."

Age to articulate spoken words such that they are understandable by others? 4-6 months (though for most children, it's 11-13 months).

This is fairly rudimentary and it depends both on the word and the listener. Most infants do not have the cognitive skills to really create language here. For them, these articulations are practice sounds. Even deaf children do it to some extent.

While it's not super common, infants can have real spoken words in this period. My own daughter had her first spoken word "all done" (yes, that counts as one word) at 5 months. My husband heard it from the other room and yelled "did she just say 'I'm done'?" Naturally, people didn't believe us. Until they heard her say that and other things themselves, then they all believed it.

Age to communicate using symbolic language? Very young.

What do I mean here? I mean actual words in an actual language. But spoken words need some time due to maturation of the vocal tract. So the words come from sign language. Note: if a caregiver teaches a child a made-up or wrong sign (something no local signer would ever use, or one that is misarticulated), and the child uses that, it still counts as a word, the same way teaching a child a made-up spoken word does; output comes from input).

Since I have a background with sign language (including teaching it to special needs students), I had already planned to teach it to my baby. But it turned out that "baby sign language" was a huge fad when my daughter was born (maybe it still is). I refused to use the made-up words but instead used American Sign Language (ASL) adapted for the developmental level of her finger articulation. I only used single words and no grammar.

And this is where I lament the fact that I didn't own a video camera (smartphones didn't exist yet but I could have bought video and I was stupid not to). Because no one hearing this story believes me (even seeing the still pictures). But dozens of people who saw it in action were instant converts and babysitters could interpret her needs via signs.

My daughter started learning a couple signs at 2 weeks. By 2-3 months, she had a vocabulary of several words, quickly growing to maybe a dozen (I took careful field notes but am doing this from memory). One of her common words was "all done" which she used while peeing/etc either on the toilet (after she could sit up and with a special seat and adult help) or being held over the sink. This is the word that morphed into her first spoken word (she said it while she signed it, something we modeled to her). (Our experiences with this were filmed for a documentary about Elimination Communication but were cut from the final version, though I have a copy somewhere.)

Age to have actual conversations? At least 1, up to 3 or 4.

This varies by child a lot. I know a lot of children who could simply not sustain a back and forth conversation until they were 3 or 4. After that, they were fine. A lot of kids can do it at age 2 and many can do it earlier. For my child, we were having fairly complex conversations at 18 months (I remember in particular because one of our cats died then and she was asking about the afterlife, talking about seeing his ghost, and all sorts of things to freak parents out).

What about memory?

The memory issue is completely separate. While there are stories of people who can remember things from birth or infancy, it's hard to know what is true. Memories fade from young children.

Using my daughter as an example again, she had a terrific memory when she was very young. She could remember things from 18 months when she was 2, for example. But then it all faded. She lost all her sign language very early, by age 2, because we stopped using it with her (no need). Starting about age 6 (or so), she stopped remembering a lot of things she had known, even things she knew continuously. There is a veil that goes over early childhood, perhaps as a consequence of brain development. My daughter is 13 now and remembers kindergarten well, and a trauma that happened at age 4, plus a few things from earlier. But pretty much all her memories from birth through at least age 3 are completely wiped out.

My background: I have a B.S. in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology with a minor in Linguistics and a masters degree in Communication. My specialty was language development. I worked for a short time as a special ed teacher. Have not done this stuff in decades though.

posted almost 6 years ago