How Babies Communicate Before Words

Babies communicate long before their first word, through crying, cooing, babbling, looks, smiles and gestures. Understanding runs ahead of speech too: the American Academy of Pediatrics says a baby can understand many words well before the first birthday. Each time an adult answers one of these signals, the exchange teaches the turn-taking that conversation depends on.

What you’ll learn

• The sounds, looks and gestures babies use in the first year
• Why understanding words comes well before saying them
• What serve and return means, and how to answer your baby’s turn
• When to ask a professional about your baby’s communication

How Do Babies Communicate Before Words?

A baby’s first messages are about needs and feelings. Crying calls for help, the sounds a baby makes shift between happy and upset, and smiles and looks carry messages of their own. Later in the first year, gestures join in, such as raising their arms to be picked up or pushing away something unwanted, and all along a baby trades sounds back and forth with the people who talk to them.

Understanding grows alongside all of this, well ahead of talking. Long before a first word, a baby turns toward voices, quiets at a soothing tone and begins to recognize the names of familiar people and things. These are the first steps in speech and language development, and each of them is a form of communication a parent can see and answer.

How the Milestone Ages Are Given

The milestone lists for the first year come from two organizations that present ages in different ways. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) sorts its communication milestones into four age bands, from birth to 3 months through 10 to 12 months. It stresses that every child develops uniquely, even inside one family, so a given milestone may come earlier for one child and later for another.

Each checklist the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes is headed with what babies do by a certain age, and a skill becomes a CDC milestone when 75 percent or more of children can do it by then. A CDC age is therefore a point at least three in four babies have reached, not the age a skill starts. The two lists describe different things, so it helps to read each age with the list it comes from, and neither list is a test of one baby.

Crying, Cooing and Early Sounds

Crying is how a baby calls for help when hungry or uncomfortable, as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) describes it. The AAP advises responding promptly during the first few months and says a young baby cannot be spoiled with attention, so answering a cry is part of the conversation from the start.

Other sounds soon join in. ASHA’s first band, birth to 3 months, includes making sounds that differ depending on whether the baby is happy or upset, and cooing, with sounds like ooooo, aahh and mmmmm. The CDC’s 2-month checklist includes making sounds other than crying, and its 4-month checklist includes cooing, with sounds like “oooo” and “aahh,” along with making sounds back when you talk.

From Vowel Sounds to Babbling

ASHA’s band for 4 to 6 months adds different vowel sounds, sometimes combined with a consonant, such as uuuuuummm, aaaaaaagoo or daaaaaaaaaa, as well as blowing raspberries. Babbling long strings of sounds, like mamamama, upup or babababa, comes next on its list, in the 7 to 9 month band. Making a lot of different sounds, like “mamamama” and “bababababa,” is on the CDC’s 9-month checklist.

A string of babble is a baby playing with sounds, and how babies come to say mama follows the step from that kind of babble to a word used for one person.

Looks, Smiles and Looking Away

Much of the early conversation happens with the eyes. The CDC’s 2-month checklist includes looking at your face, and ASHA lists responding to facial expressions, and looking at objects of interest and following them with the eyes, among its milestones for 4 to 6 months. Where a baby looks shows what has caught their interest, which gives an adult something to talk about, and there is more on following a baby’s gaze in building joint attention.

Looking away carries a message too. The AAP says a very young baby may smile past a parent without meeting their gaze, and that looking away gives a baby some control and protects them from being overwhelmed. Smiling, the AAP adds, gives a baby another way besides crying to express needs, so a smile and a glance away are both signals worth answering.

Raised Arms, Reaching, Pointing and Waving

Later in the first year, a baby’s hands join the conversation. Raising arms to be picked up and pushing away unwanted objects are both on ASHA’s list for 7 to 9 months. The CDC’s 9-month checklist includes lifting arms up to be picked up and places it under language and communication, so the CDC counts that gesture as communication in its own right.

ASHA’s band for 10 to 12 months includes reaching for objects by 10 months, along with pointing and waving. The CDC’s 1-year checklist includes waving “bye-bye,” and its tips for parents explain that babies point to ask for things. The AAP describes a baby toward the end of the first year communicating what she wants by pointing, crawling or gesturing toward it.

A gesture can be answered with words, just as a sound can. The CDC suggests responding with words when a baby points, which treats the point as the message it is and gives the baby the name of whatever they were reaching for.

Understanding Words Before Saying Them

From the early weeks, babies tune in to voices. Turning or looking toward voices, and quieting or smiling when you talk, are on ASHA’s list for birth to 3 months. The AAP says babies prefer the human voice to other sounds, and that by one month a baby can identify a parent by voice.

Before words carry meaning, tone of voice does. The AAP gives the example of a baby who stops crying at a soothing voice because she hears that her parent wants to comfort her, which a baby can do before understanding any of the words.

Recognizing words comes later in the first year. ASHA places recognizing the names of some people and objects in its 7 to 9 month band, and responding to simple words and phrases, such as “Go bye-bye” and “Look at Mommy,” in the band for 10 to 12 months. In the AAP’s words, a baby can understand many of a parent’s words well before the first birthday, at a stage when nobody can yet interpret the baby’s babbling.

Serve and Return: A Baby’s First Conversations

The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University calls these exchanges serve and return. A baby babbles, gestures or cries, which is the serve, and an adult responds with eye contact, words or a hug, which is the return. The Center says these exchanges build brain connections that are essential for the development of communication and social skills.

Turn-taking appears on the milestone lists from the very first band: ASHA includes making sounds back and forth with you in its birth to 3 month band, and the CDC’s 6-month checklist includes taking turns making sounds with you. The AAP describes these first conversations as teaching a baby many of the subtle rules of communication, among them turn-taking, tone of voice, imitation, pacing and the speed of a spoken exchange.

From clinical practice

A baby coos, pauses while a parent answers, and then coos again. That baby is already taking turns. The looks, sounds and gestures a baby trades with an adult are where talking begins.

Treated as the start of talking, first words can make the months before them feel like a wait. Those months are the conversation, and first words join it after it has been going on for a long time.

Answering Your Baby’s Sounds, Looks and Gestures

The Harvard Center’s handout for parents and caregivers sets out five steps for serve and return: notice the serve and share your baby’s focus of attention, return the serve by supporting and encouraging, give it a name, take turns and wait, and practice endings and beginnings.

Two of the steps come with explanations that suit a baby who has no words yet. Naming what a child is seeing, doing or feeling, the handout says, makes language connections in the brain even before the child can talk. It calls waiting crucial, because children need time to form their responses, so after you speak, leave your baby room to take a turn, whether it comes back as a sound, a look or a smile.

Health organizations give similar advice. ASHA’s advice for the first year is to respond to your baby: look at them when they make noises, talk to them, and imitate their sounds. For 6-month-olds, the CDC suggests back-and-forth play, smiling when your baby smiles and copying the sounds your baby makes, and the AAP suggests imitating a baby’s cooing while adding simple words and phrases.

The AAP also notes that parents talking to a baby tend to raise their pitch, slow down and exaggerate syllables, and baby talk and language development looks at what research says about that voice.

When to Ask About Your Baby’s Communication

A question about how your baby communicates can go to your pediatrician at any time, and a question needs no reason beyond wanting to know. The milestone lists help you know what to watch for, but their ages describe groups of babies, and no single item on either list sets a deadline for yours.

Some things are worth a call now, whatever your baby’s age. A baby who loses sounds, gestures or other skills they used to have is one, because a lost skill is a change a clinician will want to know about by itself. Any doubt about your baby’s hearing is another, since hearing and speech are closely linked. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders also explains that hearing loss can still develop once a newborn hearing check is passed.

Your state’s early intervention program, which evaluates babies and toddlers, will also take your call. No referral from a pediatrician is needed, because federal law requires every state’s program to accept a referral made by a parent, and the evaluation costs the family nothing. For older babies and toddlers, what speech delay means explains how clinicians use that term.

Common Questions From Parents

Do Babies Understand Words Before They Can Say Them?

Yes. Babies respond to tone of voice before words make sense to them, and the AAP says many words are understood well before a first birthday. On ASHA’s list, recognizing the names of some familiar people and objects sits in the 7 to 9 month band.

What Is Serve and Return?

Serve and return is the Harvard Center on the Developing Child’s name for the back-and-forth between a baby and an adult. A cry, a babble or a gesture is the baby’s serve, and a look, a word or a hug in reply is the return.

When Do Babies Start Babbling?

There is no single starting date. ASHA puts babbled strings like mamamama in its 7 to 9 month band, after vowel sounds at 4 to 6 months, and the CDC’s 9-month checklist has sounds like “bababababa,” an age by which at least three in four babies make them.

Is Crying a Kind of Communication?

Yes. In the AAP’s description, crying lets a baby call for help when hungry or uncomfortable, and the AAP’s advice is to answer cries promptly in the first few months. A young baby can’t be spoiled with attention, it adds, and cooing and other sounds soon join the crying.

What Gestures Do Babies Use Before Words?

Lifting both arms to be picked up and pushing unwanted things away appear in ASHA’s 7 to 9 month band. Reaching, pointing and waving follow in its band for 10 to 12 months, and the CDC’s tips say babies point to ask for things.

How Do I Talk With a Baby Who Can’t Talk Yet?

Treat whatever your baby offers, a coo, a look or a reach, as a turn and answer it. Name what your baby is looking at, copy the sounds your baby makes, then pause so your baby has room to reply in their own way.

When Should I Ask a Doctor About My Baby’s Communication?

Whenever you have a question, your pediatrician can take a look. Call now if your baby stops using sounds or gestures they had, since a lost skill matters on its own, or if hearing is in doubt. Early intervention also accepts calls straight from parents.

Reviewed by Monica d’Errico-Franklin, M.S., CCC-SLP

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