Expert: Valerie Herskowitz - 2/28/2011

Question
My son is currently 7.5 months (but 6.5 months corrected), as he was born premature due to my pre-eclampsia & HELLP syndrome.  So far, he has met all his milestones, but what i'm concerned about is (1) type of babbling and how he does it and (2) how much i should expect about him checking in on me when he's playing (ie. joint attention).

Let me first tell you more about my son's development.  He is a very happy boy.  He smiles a lot, and laughs a lot, especially when we make funny faces at him.  He LOVES peek-a-boo and initiates it himself.  Before he would just laugh when we would initiate peekaboo but now he initiates it by hiding his face with a blanket and laugh at us when he pulls it off.  He makes good eye contact with me, my husband, the nanny and with strangers too.  He responds to his name when we call him (not 100% of the time of course) but more often than not he responds by looking up at us and smiling.  Also when we come home from work, he has a HUGE smile for us the moment we say hello.  He also reaches out to be picked up, like when he is crying he looks up at us and reaches out.  He also can sit unsupported, roll over well, attempts to crawl but still can't quite do it.  He can stand holding onto something, pulls up to stand, and can walk a bit assisted.  

The first question that i had was about his babbling - He makes a lot of vowel, consonant combinations, like agoo, aba, apoooo, apaaaaa, pa, ba, ga, gooo, kooo, pwaaaa.  He doesn't often repeat the syllables like bababa, or papapa, mostly its agooo, or abaaa, or ba, or pa, but a few times (like 4-5 times) he has said bababa.  Is it really babbling when they don't often repeat syllables, and is he on track?  It's hard to say because not all the books define what exactly 'babbling' is.  Also when he babbles, he doesn't often look us straight in the eye when he does it.  He is looking at his toys, or the cat, or other things when he babbles.  When we talk to him, he doesn't often imitate our sounds, but he will smile / laugh back at us.  And when he finally talks back he looks the other way.  Sometimes he will make sounds as if to call us though - so he will look at me/ hubby in the eye and say BAAAAA as if to catch our attention, and once he has it though, then he stops, and doesn't try and imitate us when we make sounds back.  Though when he smiles, plays peekaboo, or plays other games, he has excellent eye contact.  So my question really is - is the lack of repetitive babbling concerning, and also should i expect straight on eye contact while babbling or is this fine?

One other thing i wanted to check is joint attention.  He responds when i point to somehting like the cat, or his food, by looking to where i point, or looking where i gaze.  However, if he's playing with a toy for example, he doesn't check back with me, or doesnt try and laugh about playing with his toy.  He just seems so intent on it versus wanting to share his experience of playing with the toy.  Is this normal for his age?  Or is he delayed?

I hope you can let me know how he's doing as i really tend to worry about all these things that i read about babbling/ eye contact expectations etc.

Answer
Hi Karla
His babbling sounds more like cooing becoming babbling. Cooing is the vowel sounds and babbling is the repetition of the consonant+vowel combination which it sounds like he is starting to do. Babbling usually starts around 6 months, so he seems like he is on target. Around 9 months, the babbling turns into jargon, which is babbling plus language intonations which sound like conversations.

The eye contact is hard to say-I wouldn't worry too much at this time.

Let's see how he is doing around 10 months. Write me back at that time. Right now, I wouldn't worry