Parents of very young children need to be aware of the normal development milestones of speech and language skills.
In this age of the TV dinner, where family members dine in isolation or in front of the television rather than talk with each other, communication is becoming a lost art. Unless parents make a concerted effort to help their children develop this skill, it may be lost forever to them.
The time to begin is when your children are very young.
The first thing to be concerned about is whether your child hears correctly. By 3 months, your child should be startled by a loud clap behind him. By 6 months, he should search for the source of a sound by turning his eyes and head. By 10 months, he should respond to his own name or to a telephone ringing. By 15 months, he should be able to look at familiar objects when asked, and imitate simple sounds and words. No child is too young for a hearing test and if you have concerns or doubts, go to a specialist.
Your child should be developing receptive and expressive language skills. Receptive skills refer to how well your child understands language. Expressive skills refer to the production of language. All children understand more than they can or do express. A stimulating environment helps them to develop in both areas.
In expressive language development, by three months he should be babbling. By six months, he should be expressing eagerness and vocalizing pleasure and displeasure. By eight months, he should be producing different sounds like ba, da, ka. By 10 months, he should be able to shout to attract attention and may say mamma and dadda. By 12 months, he should be able to repeat familiar words by imitation.
If, by 12 months, your child uses little or no socialized babbling, uses mostly vowel sounds, does not turn his head to his name, does not follow simple directions like “Give it to me” when accompanied by a hand gesture or does not comprehend simple gestures or the emotional tone of the speaker, you may want to have him evaluated by a specialist.
Parents can help their children develop language and communication skills by the way they talk to them. Here are just a few suggestions:
When talking to a child, first get his attention. Get down to his level. Talk about what interests him and the here and now and what is obvious. Try putting the child's feelings into words using short, simple sentences.
Use repetition. Give the child a chance to show that he understands. Imitate the sounds the child makes and give him a chance to use his voice.
Be a listener, as well as a talker. Let the child hear new sentence forms and expand his vocabulary by adding new words. When the child uses incorrect language or speech, repeat it correctly but do not tell the child he said it wrong.
Do not rely on television to teach your children language. Besides not teaching good language skills, it can prevent children from ever learning to use language correctly.
All of these suggestions and timetables are only guidelines for parents. There is great variation in normal development. As long as your child is taking the next step and not regressing, you are doing a great job. The best thing for your child is for you to take time to enjoy him. If you do that, most of the suggestions made here will come naturally to you.
(You may visit Nancy Devlin's website at www.nancydevlin.com.)