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There have been many sophisticated studies done regarding what age infants can discriminate between sounds. It has been determined that an infant of twenty-four weeks of age can discriminate between sounds as similar as "bah" and "gah." In another study it was determined that an infant as young as one month can associated sucking behavior to the sounds of "b" and "p.". As infants grow they learn to "babble" and start their own language.
An infant will start to understand words long before he can speak them. Spoken language to an infant from birth onward will help him to understand your words and also later on to be able to speak them. At first he will begin his language in his own way by his facial expressions, and gestures before he can form words. He can express comfort and discomfort and also satisfaction or unpleasantness. His learning can begin with the way you express yourself by words and gestures. He will start to pay attention to certain words as some words will have an emotional significance for him.
It cannot be stressed enough that you need to talk to an infant as there is evidence of the value of being stimulated with a language environment from the very beginning. An infant will learn to associate words with his emotional experiences in life and this gives him the motivation to talk himself, or to convey his feelings starting with his "babbling." Sure he won't always understand what you are saying at first when he is perhaps a few months old and you say "no, no."
At times a stranger might talk to your infant and try to play "pat-a-cake" and he won't respond as he is surrounded by a person or persons he is not familiar with: this is not from a lack of understanding.
As he grows he will have his own efforts to make sounds to attempt to communicate. It is very important to pronounce your words clearly to him as studies have found this in help an infant to understand. This is a very important criteria of his language development for him to understand words and their meanings. He also knows that his babbling will gain attention from most adults.
Sometimes an infant will repeat the same word as for an example "bah" many times for the same object. Then as he grows he learns to change the word "bah" to other sounds. If you will notice an infant can be in his crib making sounds and when you approach the crib and talk to him then the sounds will be more frequent. This is an important step as it paves the road so to speak for the next higher stages of his speech development. He becomes stimulated and this reinforces his own speech sounds, then he exercises his vocal cords at the same time. It also increases social stimulation from others to him.
By the age of about seven months an infant is able to vocalize defined syllables such as "Dada or "Mama." At this age infants can understand much more of what you are communicating to them. It is best not to talk "baby talk" to your child as they learn to form these words and sometimes it is hard to change them to not saying this "baby talk." Most words that are said before others are normally nouns and include just very simple words. Verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are acquired in the order I have listed them as a child grows.
As he grows his vocabulary increases and by the time he is one year old he may have a few words that he can speak very clearly. There is, however, a great variability among normal infants as to when they will being speaking many words.
Some children will talk much quicker than others.
Studies have determined that a child who has interactions with speech from other older children who speak clearly and also from adults will talk earlier and also speak more clearly.
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