Development of Communication in Infants
When your baby is born, he/she cannot speak yet, but he can communicate. He uses his looks, posture, facial expressions and cries to express his feelings and interact with you. There is no limit to his potential at this stage. Your baby is innately conditioned to learn human language and has the ability to learn to speak any language in the world and to pronounce all the sounds humans make. What’s more incredible is that your baby can distinguish between different languages based on their melodies.
Over time, language learning skills will focus on a specific language and your baby will focus more on learning their mother tongue. The way you interact with your baby, from first glances to the first sentences he speaks, is vital for him to develop his language skills.
You are the one who will give meaning to the sounds he makes and make him want to repeat them so that he can enjoy seeing you react or respond to his requests. That’s why it’s so important to talk to your baby as often as possible from the very beginning, and to coddle with them.
By providing your baby with the right environment, you will be giving him/her everything he needs to develop quickly and harmoniously. Every baby learns to speak at a different age. Some babies may start to say a few words from 12 months, while others may still be unintelligible at 2 years old. Target your child’s developmental pace! Encourage and motivate him, but don’t put pressure on him. The higher the expectations, the higher the risk of your baby giving up completely.
Between 0-1 months: Birth of communication
Crying is your baby’s first way of communicating at birth. She cries to let you know she is hungry, needs a diaper change, needs your contact, is hurt and tired. It’s up to you to learn how to decipher these messages over time!
Between 2-6 months: Crying non-stop
When your baby is about two months old, he turns the sounds he makes in his throat into a game. With the cries, humming and throat sounds, your baby will make everyone around him happy! These first cries occur in all babies in the world.
When your baby is about four months old, vowels appear, primarily “a” and “e”. After a month, your baby will begin to say his first consonants. This is the age when the famous “gu gu ga ga” sounds are heard. Your baby has already learned his mother tongue at this stage. A Chinese or Egyptian baby won’t cry in the same way as a native English baby! Talk to your baby and repeat his babbles to get him moving. Your enthusiasm will encourage him to continue.
6-9 months: Repeated syllables
By 6 months, your baby enjoys repeating syllables ending in the letter “a”. The sounds do not have a clear meaning in his mind. You are the one who will add meaning to them over time by answering them. How wonderful it is for him to see you approaching by saying “Mother has come” and at that very moment he starts chanting “nananana”! Thus, he discovers the symbolic dimension of language. He understands that every sound corresponds to an object.
Between 9-12 months: First words
When your baby is about ten months old, he starts saying chain syllables without repeating them. So it gradually builds up incomprehensible baby speech that often sounds like a foreign language! The language he speaks gradually becomes more understandable.
Their first words are usually heard when they are around 1 year old. Don’t be disappointed if her first words aren’t “dad” or “mom.” Your baby needs to specify what he wants but cannot reach first. If he doesn’t say your name, it’s no doubt because he can reach you whenever he wants. He often uses his first words very broadly.
For example, your baby may say “lolo” to convey both the bottle and your breasts, or that he or she is hungry, thirsty, or needs to be picked up. Understanding develops much faster than the ability to express oneself. At one year old, your baby can understand a wide variety of simple expressions such as “Come”, “Give it to mommy”, “Are you hungry?”, “Get your toy”.
Between 15-18 months: A thirst for learning
Enjoying the new speaking skill, your baby is thirsty to learn new words. Pointing at objects around him and asking for their name. Answer your baby’s questions and don’t forget to name the objects you’re talking about to help him build his vocabulary. When your baby is 18 months old, he knows 10-20 words very well and starts putting them together. For example; “more milk” or “daddy gone”. If he mispronounces words, don’t constantly try to correct him. In this case, you run the risk of losing his great enthusiasm and preventing him from speaking his mind. Instead, say another sentence after the sentence in which you pronounce the problem word correctly.
18-24 months: Vocabulary explodes
Between the ages of one and a half and two, your child’s vocabulary expands exponentially. He has a vocabulary of 300 words at 24 months. Your child loves to talk and sometimes it can be hard to shut him up! He can now construct simple sentences. In his first sentences, the verbs are in the infinitive form (“I can eat cake”). He also knows how to use the pronouns “I” and “you”.
3 years+: I can speak like an adult
Although his pronunciation is still not perfect, he has learned the basics of the language. Your child can construct complex sentences, conjugate verbs, and use the present, past, and future tenses correctly. He may surprise you with phrases that he repeats the way he hears them from adults, sounding like they came out of an adult’s mouth!
He is also at the age where he constantly asks “why”. His curiosity towards his environment and his desire to learn new words are insatiable. Try to respond to him in the best way possible to stimulate his intellectual development. With the sheer amount of stimulation received from teachers, supervisory staff, and other children, going to school often turns into an opportunity to make great progress.
If your child seems a little behind in language skills, do not hesitate to consult a pediatrician. There are many factors that hinder its development. A hearing problem or neurological problem, a disorder in the speech organs, a psychological-emotional stiffness, etc. it could be. Only a professional can decide if your child is really behind and if so, what caused it.