Sarah did this and it is a very good sign I was told especially if it goes up and down and not monotone. She had very good inflection and humming tunes nicely too but words came later..inflection was something the speech therapist was looking for in her to be able to ascern she would eventually get language so be very happy:)
Shelley
I was curious what people thought about a child who only babbles but with inflection? Is there any information out there about whether or not this has anything to say about a child's attempt at communication? Is inflection seen as a positive sign at all? Thanks.
John
Does it sound sort of like a foreign language? It's called 'jargoning', and is a precursor to language development. It's a normal stage that kids go through on their way to functional language development. The jargoning continues as the child becomes fluent with language. After they begin to speak with phrases, they'll sometimes use jargon to 'fill in' the spaces between words of the phrases - kind of like mumbling along to a song that you only know some of the words to :)
jargoning:
Vocalization pattern of infants that has the intonation, inflection, and rhythm of conversational speech but is unintelligible; it sounds as though the baby is talking a foreign language. Immature jargoning is completely unintelligible, whereas mature jargoning contains one or more intelligible words mixed in with the gibberish. Jargoning as an expressive language milestone emerges between 14 months (immature) and 18 months (mature).