First Words!!
Communication starts early!!
The second a baby reaches out to something, starts crying, and gains your attention, is all the beginning stages of communication! What is your child learning when you turn to them when they cry or make a sound? They are learning that their voice has an effect on people…but speaking is hard!! Think of all the things you have to coordinate in order to make words: tongue, lips, jaw…
A child’s first words are used for the primary purpose to meet our needs! Those early words are usually used to label or identify things around us. From this point, words begin to be used to request, grab attention, or affirm/deny.
How do you help child??
Model for your child! The best way to do this is to use short words and phrases rather than longer sentences. Children have trouble picking up words from a long sentence, but the repetition of words in a phrase or single word utterance will help them pick out words more easily. For example: “Car. My car. Where is car? Car. Push the car. Go car!”
Face-to-Face communication!!! Get on your child’s level and draw attention to your mouth and face as you are speaking and playing with them. This will help your child focus more on the oral motor movement required to produce a variety of words.
If your child uses gestures, respond to them with words! For example, if your child is reaching or pointing to a ball, then pick up the ball and hand it to them while saying, “Ball.” Over time, increase your response time to allow your child a chance to verbally request for the object, whether that is with a sound, word approximation, or true word.
Don’t focus on intelligibility or perfection! If your child says “ba” and you know it is for ball, praise him/her for that vocalization! Say things like “Good talking!, You said ____, Good words!”
The biggest trap parents fall into is anticipating your child’s every need. This is so easy to do because who knows your child better than you? NO ONE! Try delaying your response to giving your child objects or responding to a need (picking them up) in order to give them the opportunity to verbalize.
