In the babbling stage, which skills develop such as control of pitch and volume and the emergence of consonant-vowel sequences? Which stage is this describing?

• A. Pre-speech stage
• B. Babbling stage
• C. Two-word stage
• D. Early Multiword Stage

Answer: (B)

During the babbling stage, infants begin shaping the sounds of language by gaining control over pitch and volume, experimenting with intonation and loudness as they vocalize. They also start producing consonant–vowel sequences, stringing together syllables like “ba,” “da,” or other CV patterns that move toward the sound structure of real words. This stage comes after the reflexive sounds of the pre-speech period and before the use of true words in the two-word and later multiword stages. The combination of developing prosody (pitch and volume control) and CV syllable production is characteristic of babbling.