Infant vocalization: A comprehensive view

Two different accounts of infant vocal development have recently been advanced. Both stress the lawful nature of this development and propose that it occurs in a series of stages. One account stresses the infant's attempt to make speech-like sounds from the earliest months and proposes that characteristics of speech are successively brought under the infant's control. The other suggests that instead, processes of integration and coordination of aspects of vocalization are taking place and considers these processes in relation to the situational contexts of vocalizing. A more comprehensive view is proposed in which aspects of both accounts are incorporated.