Speech as a planned behavior, even when they are babbling

I just finished the first half of the article focusing on the discussion about how the unification of the speech and intellectual development were conveyed through the symbolic activity. One idea that I resonated most is that thought, speech and action function together to solve the problem.
Words directed toward the solution of the problem pertain not only to objects belonging to the external world, but also to the child's own behavior, to its actions and intentions
This reminds me of the time that I was observing my younger sister learning to speak. Before I read the article, I did not count babbling as the development of speech, as I thought it might be too spontaneous to be defined. However, now I am inclined to count the babbling as the start of the development of speech, even though it sounds or looks spontaneous sometimes. She began to form understandable phrases around 15-18 months, but she babbled a lot before 1-year-old. Of course, I could not understand most of what she said thoroughly. She started to make the sound like"ma-ma" or "da-da" around 8 months. Our family guessed that she tried to learn how to address the family member and communicate with us, as the pattern of the sounds emerged and she seemed to apply the words into similar social situations (i.e. using "da-da" for any man). She tried to address me with some sound during that time as well, but the word for addressing older sister might be too difficult for her to pronounce or even to make a similar sound. However, one day we found that she figured her way out to communicate with me. Whenever she wanted to call me, she yelled "Laa-laa"!! We guessed she got inspired by the tv series she watched every day- Teletubbies. Laa-laa is one of the main characters in the Teletubbies (see the following pic). The youngest character is Po, wearing a red costume. Laa-laa is his third oldest sister, wearing a yellow costume. She was very sweet, taking care of other Teletubbies. It may be possible that she found the connection between Laa-laa and me, and it's also easy to pronounce. Ever since the first time she used "Laa-laa"to call me and I responded, my name was changed to "Laa-laa" for a period of time. I thought it could be an interesting example showing how the child use symbolic words to "think-aloud" their inner speech with a social intention.

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