New Delhi, India

Are squeals, growls, and the many sounds babbling babies make just cute nonsense, or do they have some scientific significance? As per new research, these cute, seemingly nonsense sounds might actually be the babies warming themselves up for speech.

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Not just jolly nonsense

Researchers analysed the sounds made by infants during the first year of their lives. They found that these squeals, squeaks, and growls tend to occur in groups.

"One of the primary reasons for our pursuit of the question of clustering is that it could turn out to be a useful marker in screening for disorders of communication," explains Dr Hyunjoo Yoo from the University of Alabama, the first author of the research.

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For their research, Yoo and his colleagues studied 130 infants aged less than 13 months through home recordings made monthly by their parents and caregivers. The 130 infants were divided into six groups: 0-2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, 9–10, 11–13 months.

Selecting random five-minute segments from each video, the researchers analysed them for the presence of squeals, growls and vocants — vowel-like sounds.

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They extracted 15,774 segments from 1,104 recordings and found that more than 60 per cent of the recordings showed clustering of either squeals or growls.

"There was not a single infant who, on evaluation of all the available recordings for the infant, showed neither a significant case of squeal clustering nor of growl clustering," said the researchers.

Clustering across the six groups, as per the researchers, suggests that some mechanism of vocal exploration is present from the beginning of life.

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One curious observation reported by the researcher is that the 3–4 months range showed the lowest average values of growls or squeal clustering. This, as per The Guardian, is curious because traditionally this age is thought to be associated with the onset of vocal play.

The researchers also noticed that for infants over five months of age, there was a higher propensity towards squeals than growls. This, they propose, could be due to the development of control over the vocal chords.

Yoo, as quoted by The Guardian, suggested that caregivers by imitating the sounds made by the infants could help them develop their vocal repertoires.

"Thus, it seems logical that it would be beneficial for infants if caregivers try to contingently respond and interact more with their infants by imitating squeals, vocants and growls," said the author.

(With inputs from agencies)