In vocalizations, back consonants appear first during the reflexive stages, but front consonants appear first in the voluntary stages.
- In terms of sound production, the baby during the initial reflexive stages, of cooing and babbling, when there is little control of the articulators, will produce mainly the back consonants like "K," and "G."
- This is not surprising since tongue tip control is not gained until later. Plus, the tongue is relatively large for the size of the oral cavity.
- At about six months of age, however, considerable voluntary control of the articulators is achieved.
- The child enters a new stage of vocalization called Lalling, which we will discuss later in another section. Under these circumstances the sounds we hear at first almost exclusively are the front consonants like "M," "B," and "D."
- It is not surprising that the names of significant others to the baby in many languages are words that begin with front consonants, like "Mama," Dada," and "Baba."