The birth of a long-awaited child is always a great joy for the whole family, forever changing the usual life of new parents.
Every day brings new sensations: the baby smiled, reacted to the presence of a loved one, extended his arms, etc.
Unforgettable emotions are evoked by the sounds of a baby and his first words. Mom and Dad await these events with trepidation.
The article examines why some children begin to speak earlier and others later, and why girls begin to speak earlier than boys.
At what age does a child begin to speak his first words?
The first cry of a baby is its first sound, with which the baby notifies the whole world about:
- Your birth.
- Fear.
- Stress caused by a new environment.
While exploring the world, the baby learns to speak, acquiring a basic vocabulary during the first two years of life.
The earliest sounds a baby makes are “a”, “o”, “agu”; then he will begin to recognize his parents and try to say “ma-ma” and “pa-pa”; What follows will be a stream of babbling and attempts to express thoughts in phrases.
Let's try to figure out at what age children should start talking about what is the norm and what is a deviation from it.
Note! At what time the baby begins to speak depends on his individual characteristics, the time devoted to development, physical and mental state.
Let's look at the table:
| Age (in months) | Description |
| 1 — 2 | The baby only cries, thereby expressing his dissatisfaction with hunger, wet diaper, lack of attention, etc. |
| 3 — 4 | The baby distinguishes the voices and sounds made by the parents and tries to babble, pronouncing simple syllables. But it is a mistake to think that he does this consciously. With a set of vowels and consonants, the baby masters the speech apparatus: lips, tongue, palate |
| 6 — 9 | He consciously babbles, abruptly pronouncing light words often used by loved ones, imitating his parents in intonation, and begins to understand what they are saying to him. Parents need to help the child develop: read books with him, tell fairy tales, poems, talk |
| 12 — 18 | Tries to speak in simple phrases, emphasizing them with the necessary intonation |
| 24 | Usually knows at least two hundred words and can use them correctly. Parents should conduct daily play activities with their baby, replenishing their vocabulary. At this age, the baby absorbs new words, so mom and dad need to monitor their speech and behavior |
| 36 | Complicates sentences by inserting pronouns. Understands intonation and applies it in speech. Speaks consciously and clearly |
From humming to babbling
At the beginning of the fourth month, the baby begins to look for an adult, smiles, and begins to intensively move his arms and legs (revitalization complex). He begins to emit drawn-out and melodious combinations of sounds - he cooes, saying a-a, a-gu, a-ha. Some sounds are simply impossible to reproduce; such phonemes do not exist in the Russian language.
After another 2–3 months, the turn of babbling comes. At first these are individual syllables pa, ka, na, ma, which a little later become similar to the peculiar words pa-pa-pa, ka-ka-ka, na-na-na. Most often, babbling appears when the baby is full, has slept and is in a good mood. This is not yet a speech, but preparation for it, a kind of preparatory exercise.
Although he does not speak yet, he understands a lot - he turns his head when he is shown a familiar toy, a bird, a cat. Children 6-7 months old fulfill simple requests - give a pen, play palms, and this is also a step towards speech development.
When should a child start speaking Komarovsky?
The famous pediatrician, Dr. Komarovsky, having studied the development of children for many years, came to the conclusion that for the normal development of speech, the baby requires the presence of certain factors.
Such as:
- Presence of hearing and voice.
- Normally developing intelligence.
- Constant communication with others.
It is inappropriate to note the importance of one factor and the secondary importance of another, since they complement each other.
Constant communication with the baby, if his perception is normal, will do its job - the baby will start talking.
Dr. Komarovsky claims that the absence of coherent speech in a child at 3 years old does not indicate a deviation from the norm. If after this age the baby does not speak, you should consult a doctor.
In such cases, you need to pay attention to some factors:
- Presence of complications during labor.
- The presence of congenital genetic diseases (observed in children with Down syndrome and other diseases of a similar nature).
- If babies were born premature.
- Lack of emotional experiences, indifference to external stimuli, autism.
- When there is no reaction to external sounds, deafness.
- Isolation from communication with the outside world, social underdevelopment, improper upbringing.
The word is a continuation of thought
It is important to remember to constantly communicate. You should always talk to your child. So, if mom is preparing a meal, you can tell the baby what a delicious dinner mom is preparing; if they are going to visit or just walk outside, you should explain to your daughter or son what mom will dress him in, where they will go, whether it is cold or warm outside. Throughout the day, the baby should be an interlocutor, even if he does not speak yet. This is very important for a child. Even if he cannot speak yet, he understands everything perfectly and participates in everything in his own way.
After six months, children are interested in all the sounds around him. At this age, you should explain to them how a dog, car, cow, etc. works. Thanks to such lessons, the child will begin to associate and remember certain sounds, which will later become words, phrases, and then even entire sentences.
Motor skills and speech
Another point that all parents should remember is the stage of development of baby’s hand motor skills. It is necessary to play various games with the child, using small objects, for example, buttons, peas, coins. In this way, children develop fine motor skills of their fingers, and this is directly related to the verbal apparatus. A child will always be interested in making something out of plasticine, “helping” mom in the kitchen, peeling a banana, etc. As a result of such activities, the baby will not only have an interesting time, but will also quickly learn to say “mom”.
Parents should pay great attention to spending time reading. It is necessary to constantly read various works to your child. At the same time, it is important to choose interesting fairy tales and stories, taking into account the age of the baby. Mothers should know that the baby perceives the story best if the mother retells everything to him with expressiveness, explaining points that are not very clear to the child.
The book is the depth of knowledge of the truth
Reading books is a very interesting and useful activity. Even restless children can be interested in their parents' story if the book is chosen correctly. In addition, it is important to instill in your child a love of reading from childhood. After all, only books can further develop a child’s thinking, imagination, and also receive a lot of useful knowledge and advice.
You can also conduct various performances at home. For example, you can cut out some fairy tale characters from paper or mold them from plasticine and perform home “performances”. Such activities contribute to the development of imagination and speech.
Teach your kids beautiful things and they will be grateful to you for it in the future!
When does a child start speaking in sentences?
No one can name any specific time frame for the development of correct, coherent and meaningful speech.
Some children break records, starting to speak at an early age, up to a year, while others remain silent for a long time and speak only at 5 years old.
There is one pattern - girls overcome this developmental milestone faster than boys.
When your children start speaking in sentences depends only on you: the efforts made for the child’s intellectual development are important; developmental exercises with it.
If your child is a late talker, don’t expect him to immediately begin to pronounce phrases in sentences. You need to wait patiently and work with the baby.
His mental and emotional state and the microclimate in the family play a huge role in the development of speech in a baby.
If the baby begins to talk, but is greatly frightened by something, he may stop talking. Therefore, parents are advised not to raise their voices to avoid stressful situations.
If a normally developing baby who does not have congenital diseases does not begin to speak at 4 years old, he needs help. For this purpose, speech therapists and child psychologists have developed special techniques.
By conducting such classes, logical thinking develops, perception of the outside world improves, which contributes to rapid development.
The first “ma” and “pa”: so far only imitation of parents
At what time does a baby’s perception of words spoken by others improve? This should be expected closer to four months. In addition, a child at this age begins to intensively try to speak on his own. You will be able to hear from him various syllables, which are a combination of consonant and vowel sounds “ma”, “ba”, “pa” and others.
But this still cannot be called meaningful speech. The baby simply imitates his parents and often communicates with himself in a language he understands. However, this is excellent, since in the process of such “conversations” all the muscles involved in speech develop well, and those movements of the tongue and lips are mastered that will help the baby utter his first word in the very near future.
How to help a child start talking, exercises
To help your baby pronounce words well, you need to follow some recommendations from experts:
- Talk to your baby constantly. Share your feelings, emotions; tell him what you see and do, praise him more often. Replacing live communication with TV or audio recordings is not the best way to understand the world around you; this will not bring results.
- Develop hand motor skills - it develops the area of the brain responsible for speech. Play games with your son or daughter that involve your fingers and palms, color in coloring books, and practice drawing. Involve your baby in the household, sort out cereals together, string beads, etc. Don’t forget about massage; it’s useful to knead your palms and heels.
- Conduct daily classes, performing developmental exercises: ask to name an object, describe a picture, continue a rhyme. If your child pronounces the letter r poorly, practice articulation with him: say tongue twisters with this sound; Using your own example, in front of a mirror, show how the tongue moves correctly, etc.
Attention. Do not lose sight of speech delays in a child, this may be a signal of the development of some disease.
If the baby’s speech does not meet the standards, immediately contact specialists: neurologists, speech therapists, speech pathologists.
Don't expect him to speak on his own, without anyone's help. The sooner the problem is discovered, the sooner the baby will be helped.
How to stimulate babbling
From 6 months, children are able to move in space - sit and crawl. Their perception improves, they can repeat sounds after adults. This skill can be developed - as soon as the child pronounces the syllables, the parents repeat them after him. This technique develops hearing, articulation organs, speech exhalation, and encourages the baby to pronounce these syllables again and again. Such mini-lessons are carried out with a cheerful, well-fed and healthy baby. If he is cold, hungry, or unwell, verbal games with his parents will not do any good.
It’s good if the child sees the face of the one who is talking to him, then he will be able to repeat the movements of his mother or father’s lips. In order for sounds to be heard clearly, you need to ensure complete silence - turn off the music, mute the sound of the TV.
You can play “hide and seek” by covering the baby’s face with a diaper and saying “peek-a-boo.” Showing adults objects of the environment develops passive vocabulary well. In this case, you need to clearly name them, accompanied by a pointing gesture. Soon the child will find them with his eyes, reacting to the adult’s question “Where is the watch?”, “Where is the cat?”, “Where is the car?”
The video below provides specific tips for parents of a one-year-old baby:
Why do modern children start speaking late?
Speech therapists, psychologists and pediatricians around the world are sounding the alarm - modern children are starting to speak late.
Experts explain this for the following reasons:
- Environmental change; The air has become more polluted.
- Parents, while raising children, are exposed to emotional and psychological stress, which is immediately passed on to their children.
- Cases of caesarean sections have become more frequent. A baby born in this way is different from others. Deviations are not critical and can be corrected; they require constant attention and effort.
- Replacing live communication with gadgets. At this age, the baby has no need to talk; his entire world is virtual reality.
The most common misconception among parents is the belief that the problem will go away on its own and the child will start talking at school. Reasoning this way, they miss the opportunity to help the baby in time.
Spend time with your children, experience joys, victories and defeats with them, and they will answer you in kind.
Baby's crying as the first attempts to establish contact with parents
In the first two months, you should not expect the child to utter any meaningful words. During this period, he can only cry periodically, informing his mother that it is time to start feeding or change the diaper. But at the end of the third month, children usually begin to perceive short words and phrases that their parents utter and make attempts to say something on their own. You can hardly count on the baby to speak fluently right away, but believe me, even the simplest words, such as “agu,” will be a real joy for you.
Meaningful phrases and expanding your vocabulary
He usually pronounces the first words, the meaning of which is clear not only to the baby, but also to his parents, at the age of 8-9 months. After this, you can expect significant development of speech skills, which includes:
- pronouncing fully meaningful, but still short phrases;
- increasing vocabulary. For a two-year-old child, it can already amount to 200 or more words - everything again depends on the efforts of the parents;
- the ability to use intonation when pronouncing certain words and phrases.
By the age of 3, vocabulary increases even more. But if previously the child used mainly nouns, now pronouns, verbs and other parts of speech will increasingly appear in his speech. In addition, the baby can maintain a simple conversation and control intonation, depending on how the interlocutor speaks to him.
