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A dynamic systems approach to babbling and words

What is the developmental function of babbling in relation to language, if any? How is it related to the child’s first words, and can this relationship shed any light on the highly controversial issue of the origins of grammar in acquisition? Studies of both infant speech perception and early vocal production have produced a wealth of findings over the past thirty-five years, but theoretical progress has been slow, with deductive ideas drawn from linguistic theory often masking the coherent evidence provided by observational and experimental studies. Dynamic systems theory (Thelen & Smith 1994), with its emphasis on the role of variability in developmental advance, on the independent emergence of related skills as a self-organizing catalyst for behavioural change and on the deep interconnectedness between perception and action and learning, offers a promising perspective on early speech development. While reviewing the empirical findings of studies of production and of links between perception and production this chapter will also consider the relationship of those findings to dynamic systems theory.