Socialization and Pre-Linguistic Development among the Luo of Kenya

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Abstract
The pre-linguistic period of child development, the period during which children's vocalizations are devoid of linguistic meaning, is customarily divided into a cooing and a babbling stage. Furthermore, the vocalizations are considered to be conditioned by biological and physiological, but not by social factors. A study of interaction between Luo adults and infants shows, however, that the interactional framework changes as the children progress in their phonative skills and that the alteration facilitates the linguistic and social development of the children. Luo adults key on the children's ability to interact vocally, reducing the complexity of linguistic input initially and then increasing it gradually as the children gain competence.

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