Budget Amount *help |
¥1,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,900,000)
Fiscal Year 1995: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 1994: ¥1,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000)
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Research Abstract |
A notable event that occurs in the development of the infant's speech capabilities is the onset of babbling. Although the development of babbling culminates in "canonical syllable production", preceding stage is characterized by "marginal babbling", which has a well-formed margin (consonant) and nucleus (vowel) but includes a slow (more than 120 ms) formant transition. During this marginal babbling stage, specific pattern of manual action, rhythmic banging, is frequently performed by the infant, synchronizing with the babbling production. This synchronization helps the infant produce those sounds that with rapid formant transition, and once the infant acquires the motor skills to produce canonical babbling, diminishes. Deaf infants also utter marginal babbling. However marginal babbling stage never transits to canonical babbling stage. Furthermore such synchronization originates when the infant is still 4 month old, and appears first as synchronization between laughter and stereotypic leg movement, by which multi-syllabic sound production is facilitated.
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