In the second three months (in the case of one child in the twenty-third
week, with other healthy children considerably earlier) were heard, for
the first time, the loud and high _crowing_-sounds, uttered by the child
spontaneously, jubilantly, with lively movements of the limbs that
showed the waxing power of the muscles: the child seemed to take
pleasure in making the sounds. The utterance of syllables, on the other
hand, is at this period often discontinued for weeks at a time.
In the third quarter of the first year, the lisping or stammering was
more frequent. New sounds were added: _bae_, _fbu_, _fu_; and the
following were among those that were repeated without cessation,
_baebaebae_, _daedaedae_; also _adad_, _eded_.
In the next three months the child manifested his satisfaction in any
object by the independent sound _ei_, _ei_. The first imitations of
sounds, proved to be such, were made after the age of eleven months. But
it is more significant, for our comprehension of the process of learning
to speak, that long before the boy tried to imitate words or gestures,
viz., at the age of nine months, he distinguished accurately the words
"father, mother, light, window, moon, lane"; for he looked, or pointed,
at the object designated, as soon as one of these words was spoken.
And when, finally, imitation began, musical tones, e. g., F, C, were
imitated sooner than the spoken sounds, although the former were an
octave higher.
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