VOCALIZATION AND COMMUNICATION BY INFANTS 6-15 MONTHS OLD

This study attempts to link research concerning intentional communicat ion in infants with research pertaining to the phonology of prelinguis tic vocalisations. Its goals were to evaluate the communicative value of vocalisations during their development and to determine whether inf ants use a specific kind of vocalisation (nonlinguistic or prelinguist ic) when they communicate with others. Twenty-four 6- to 15-months-old infants were observed in a situation of request tasks. The results su ggest that infants increasingly use the vocal channel and increasingly direct their vocalisation to other individuals as they get older. Nev ertheless, infants do not seem to employ a specific kind of vocalisati on when they communicate.