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Jessica is on the verge of beginning to walk. A competent crawler, she’s not yet sure about relying on her own two feet to get around. Notice how she exhibits the strength of her legs by raising her body up and down. Listen for Jessica’s response when the teacher (camera person) says, “Jessica, who did we just see on the tape taking so many steps?” Notice that Jessica babbles with intention as if responding to the teacher’s inquiry. Also notice how she differentiates her sounds by using intonation, utters a syllable-like combination of consonants and vowel sounds, and produces strings of sounds as if she is carrying on a conversation, but without using real words. All of the pre-linguistic skills that Jessica demonstrates help to prepare infants for later language development. Watch how Jessica again turns her attention to the topic of locomotion. This time, she assures herself by using the wall as a support. This strategy gives her the courage to take several steps forward. However, when Jessica notices that she has gained quite a bit of distance on Noah, she decides to rejoin her friend.

Length of stand-alone master video clip: 3 minutes 16 seconds

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Keywords: Infants, Body, Gross Motor, Babbling, Language, Communication