Measuring phonology in babble and speech

Procedures for measuring prelinguistic vocalizations and early phonological development are described and illustrated. The prelinguistic measures indicate that production of supraglottal consonants in consonant-vowel syllables is correlated with subsequent speech and language development and that limited use of consonants can serve as a way to identify children who are at risk for speech and language disorders. Three measures of meaningful speech are discussed, two based on accuracy of production, one on error patterns. All three correlate with severity of involvement, but as yet their relationship to speech intelligibility is unclear.