Learning to talk

One of the most exciting milestones for parents and children is the child’s first word. For most kids, this happens around one year of age. Parents can encourage language learning, starting before birth!

Babies can hear before they are born. Scientists say that babies can hear music, sounds, voices and especially mom’s voice while they are in the womb. Newborns will recognize music and voices they heard before birth, so it’s never too early to talk to your child!

Newborns communicate with parents without language. Your baby will communicate by crying, looking, listening, smiling and facial expressions. Babies learn very quickly how to communicate with parents with cries and when parents respond to their babies cries baby learns that he can communicate with others.

Babies love to listen to voices so talk and read to your baby often. Look directly at your child’s face and just talk or sing! Hold your baby and read to him. As your baby grows she will begin to coo, make gurgles and babble. Imitate her sounds, look baby in the eyes and say her noises and coos back to her. When you babble with your baby you are teaching her turn taking and conversation, even when you don’t use any words.

As your child grows the early sounds become babbling-usually a string of sounds such as dadada or bababa.  This is an important way that babies practice making sounds. You may even notice your child practicing babbling when he is alone in the crib after waking up from a nap. Your child loves it when you repeat his sounds back to him, and also when you describe his world. Talk to your child, sing to your child, and read to your child and you will be providing him with lots of sounds and words, an important part of learning language. Play games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake to help your child get connections between actions and words.

Before your child ever says her first word, she understands lots of words. This is called receptive language. Usually, by six months of age your child will understand her name, and by 9 to 12 months your child will begin to understand many words. He will probably understand words such as no, names of special people in his life and names of objects that are important to him.

At about this age your child will be able to communicate with you quite well without words, maybe by pointing or gestures. Your child will get his message across by using non-verbal means such as waving bye-bye, shaking her head  “no”,  pointing when he wants his cup or toy or holding up both arms to be picked up. Name these actions for your baby when he does them to help him make word connections. Describe what is happening in baby’s world, maybe describe what you are doing when you get her food ready or name body parts when you give baby a bath. Describing baby’s world gives him exposure to lots of different words and sounds. Reading is another good way to expose your child to words and sounds. As you read a book, point to a picture and name it, then ask your child to point to the picture in the book.

All of the language, talking and reading to your child will pay off when your child says that first word, usually around a year old. The words will keep coming quickly after that. By age two your child should be saying short sentences and can follow simple instructions. By age three years children can follow instructions with two or three steps and can understand most words. Sentences are more complete and longer and most speech is understandable to strangers. By age 4 kids understand grammar and can use plurals, pronouns and even sing a song or rhyme from memory.

From the beginnings of making sounds to your newborn to repeating babies sounds back to her, reading, talking and singing parents play an important and exciting role in helping their child learn to talk and communicate.