What time do children start talking: information and expert advice

The first year is the most joyful for parents, but also the most anxious. The baby sneezed - the parents are worried, the baby has a fever - they don’t sleep all night, and if the child doesn’t sit down or starts crawling - the adults panic! And the mother’s first word is awaited like manna from heaven! After all, doctors say that today more and more children suffer from speech development delays. When should a baby normally start talking, and is it worth worrying if he doesn’t say a word for a year and a half? Galina Nikolaevna Shimonova, a pediatric neurologist at the Scientific Center for Mental Health of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, talks about this.

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.

At what months do babies begin to speak their first words?

Infants communicate with adults using facial expressions and screams.
This is how they express their dissatisfaction or joy. The formation of speech begins in the neonatal period, when the first vocalizations appear. With the help of extended sounds (“oo-oo-oo”, “a-a-a” or “o-o-o”), the child addresses his parents, expresses his needs and emotions. By the age of five months, babbling begins. The baby can say “da-da-da” or “na-na-na.” By 9 months, the first words “ma-ma”, “ba-ba”, “pa-pa” appear. But the child pronounces them accidentally. The baby begins to pronounce the first conscious words by 12 months. They are easily confused with the babble from which they emerge.

But if you carefully observe the child, you can notice the difference. The spoken words are very simple and do not contain a stressed syllable. Kids try to name things or actions that are important to them. The passive vocabulary is updated every day.

Children learn new information at different speeds. Some say a few words by the age of one year (for example, “mom,” “baba,” “dad”), others say about 15. All this is a variant of the norm. At 12 months, the baby should understand what his parents say to him and pronounce simple words.

According to the famous doctor Komarovsky, the time at which a child begins to speak largely depends on the parents. It should be noted that active speech is formed quite abruptly.

At one year of age, a child learns 1-6 words per month. This stage is quite long. Next, a leap in development occurs, the active vocabulary begins to rapidly expand. In a week, the baby learns about 12 new names of things, actions or animals.

After a while, a new leap occurs: the child begins to memorize 10-12 words per day. At this stage, the active and passive dictionaries are equalized and replenished simultaneously.

According to pediatricians and psychologists, gender has a certain influence. So, girls develop and begin to speak faster than boys.

How to help your child talk

The best way is to create all the conditions for communication. Here are the three most important things every parent should do.

Talk

No need to chat non-stop. Just talk to your child when you spend time together.

Name the things you hold in your hands or hold out to your baby: “This is a ball. And this is a machine."
Describe what you are doing: “Now we are putting on pants. And now - a jacket. And let’s go for a walk!”
Explain what is happening around: “Uh-oh, what a loud car!”, “Kar! It’s a crow cawing,” “But mom’s phone is ringing.”
Ask questions: “Do you hear dad calling us? Let’s run to him!”, “Is your bunny tired? Does he want to go to bed?
Sing lullabies.

Read aloud

Reading shows the child that there are many different words, teaches how to form sentences, and demonstrates how an action develops. This encourages him to tell his own stories, such as how dolls play with each other, why the car is hidden, or why he doesn’t want to eat your soup.

Signs of speech delay

Despite the individual development of the baby, the mother must monitor how he develops. If mom suspects any abnormalities at an early stage, they can be corrected more easily.

Parents should be wary if the baby has not begun to pronounce a few words by the age of one year or cannot repeat sounds after adults. If a child cannot remember the names of objects by the age of 2, does not respond to his name, or cannot bring an object that you ask him to, this also indicates minor developmental disorders.

You need to contact a specialist if by the age of 2 a child finds it difficult to formulate the simplest sentence, he has difficulty pronouncing individual words, he does not react to the speech of adults and cannot repeat words after them. It is not good when a child begins to distinguish colors late. If a child by the age of 2.5 cannot distinguish colors and does not know the names of body parts. The same applies to 3 years of age, when the baby does not understand the meaning of simple stories and does not speak in sentences.

If parents notice one of these abnormalities in their child, do not immediately panic. Perhaps this is just a developmental feature, but you still need to show the baby to a specialist. He must do tests and the necessary examinations, the results of which will show whether it is necessary to start treatment or whether it is enough to limit himself to regular exercises.

Child development stages

In mental development, children go through several stages, and they go through them in different ways. Some crawl until they are one and a half years old, while others do not crawl at all; some babies erupt teeth at three or four months, while others only get their first tooth when they are one year old. Although, of course, certain developmental norms exist, and pediatricians and neurologists use them to assess the condition and development of the baby. According to these standards, “babble” should appear in a child’s speech as early as 6-7 months, and by the age of one year the baby should repeat several words. However, many factors influence the development of a child: pregnancy, childbirth, lifestyle and even gender. For example, boys, as a rule, begin to speak later than girls of the same age. In addition, boys are more likely to have speech problems. This is due to genetic factors. Heredity also plays an important role: if one of the parents spoke late, then the child will most likely experience a speech delay. And these are all variants of the norm.

Parents who closely monitor the development of the child should consult a doctor if, at the age of 1.5 years, the baby does not understand simple words (his name and the names of surrounding objects), and at the age of 2 years, he does not try to repeat words. Children's inability to form two-word phrases at 2.5 years of age and their inability to pronounce simple sentences at 3 years of age should also be a major concern for parents. Speech development delays are recorded in 2-4% of children.

But if even after 3 years the child does not speak even simple sentences, you can forget about the normal version. However, experts do not advise waiting until 2-3 years of age and suggest starting classes with the child already in infancy, at 7-8 months, when the baby begins to understand speech addressed to him.

Some mothers are glad that their children very early (about 1-1.5 years) begin to speak in correct sentences, using a fairly extensive vocabulary. However, such phenomena often lead to a breakdown of the nervous system. Such children need rest, walks in the fresh air, a minimum of impressions and moderate conversations.

How to teach a child under one year to speak

The prerequisites for the development of speech are laid during pregnancy, and many mothers, knowing this, turn on music, sing songs and talk to the baby (it’s good if dads and other family members do this). This stimulates hearing and the areas of the brain responsible for language formation. It has been proven that already in the womb, children distinguish sounds and begin to move their lips when their mother speaks.

What determines the development of speech of a newborn person?

Ability to hear.
Functioning speech apparatus.
Rich language environment (and speech directed at the baby).
Desire to communicate.

So how can you help your child start talking? Make sure that the first two physiological factors are normal, and create conditions for the development of the other two psychological aspects.

There is a simple way to test your hearing at home: clap your hands, ring a rattle and look at the reaction - the baby can blink, move his arms, freeze, start looking for the source of the sound with his eyes, or, from two months, turn his head in the direction of the noise. Lack of response or any alarming signal is a reason to have your hearing checked.

The speech apparatus at birth is only partially ready for work and gradually “ripens”. By the third month, the larynx drops, the tongue has more space, and the baby begins to make sounds, which will then form syllables and words. For this to work, he must hear an adult from birth and see his face, watch his lips

Therefore, for the first six months to a year, it is important for parents to be a “mirror”

For example, at about three months, when children begin to say aha, you need to actively and emotionally repeat after them, stimulating them to repeatedly pronounce and connect sounds. With your support, the baby will go through the stages of speech development in the first year: humming and babbling. Gradually, individual sounds “a-a-a”, “gee-khi”, “a-gu” develop into “ba-ba-ba”, “al-le-e-ly-agy”.

At 5–6 months, new sounds and syllables appear: ba-ba, ma-ma, doo-doo, and then they lengthen: ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma.

From 7 to 12 months, the necessary sounds are practiced and relationships between the object and the name are established, and certain sound combinations and syllables are assigned to individual concepts.

The baby listens carefully and tries to imitate the speech of adults, which means he learns the prosodic side of speech, which includes intonation, timbre, rhythm, tempo, melody, breathing, pauses and even facial expressions during pronunciation. This side is no less important than the sound side, and the speech apparatus needs training

Therefore, it is important to continue speaking so that children can see your face, sing songs with different melodies and rhythms

The age of about a year (12–14 months) is the established norm when a child begins to speak his first words, although already from 8–9 months some children deliberately say mom, dad, grandma). The baby already fulfills simple verbal requests and matches objects with their names.

A necessary condition to help a child learn to speak is a rich language environment. Adults need simple but very important actions:

speech should be directed at the baby, the pace should be slightly slower, the words drawn out, articulation emphasized;
speak, sing and read as much as possible to create a “conversational volume” from which the baby draws his vocabulary and can imitate;
monitor literacy and beauty of speech.

Children must have a desire to communicate, which an attentive adult actively supports. Remember the principles of interaction with your baby, which apply at any age:

We address ourselves specifically to our son or daughter (the speech is directed at the child and is accompanied by eye contact, a smile, and gestures), with the internal message: “I am addressing you.” We demonstrate interest in the reaction, convey the thought: “It is important for me to hear you.” We show respect for the opinions and feelings of the interlocutor, regardless of age, so that he knows our position: “I understand what you wanted to say / what you feel.”

Causes of speech delay and impairment in preschool age

If a child was born healthy, a delay in his speech development may occur due to incorrect actions of adults during the preparatory period: with insufficient verbal communication with the baby, inattention to his auditory perception, imitation of sounds and words of an adult, with untimely development of intonational expressiveness of speech and semantic connections between word and object.

Before speaking, the baby must train the muscles of the speech apparatus. This happens when he walks, babbles, breathes, swallows, sucks, chews. It has been noticed that children who were breastfed encounter speech difficulties less often than children who are fed artificially, and those who were promptly introduced to solid food speak much more clearly than their peers who were stuffed with liquid porridge and pureed vegetables almost before school.

Speech disturbances are caused by various reasons: congenital anomalies of the central nervous system, cerebral cortex, palate, tongue, defects in nasal breathing and decreased muscle tone of the soft palate (this pathology leads to nasality), mental trauma (for example, in impressionable children prone to neurosis a fear reaction can provoke stuttering), etc.

A child who was born deaf or who has lost hearing as a result of an illness in the first weeks and months of life will not learn to speak until a teacher of the deaf (a specialist who teaches speech to deaf children) teaches him to “lip read”, teaches him to pronounce individual sounds, and then words with relying on tactile, kinesthetic, and visual perception. Such activities should begin at the age of three or four.

The development of speech and thinking is closely related to the development of fine motor skills and coordination of finger movements. Children who work with construction sets, engage in origami, plasticine modeling, embroidery and other types of handicrafts, as a rule, are able to reason logically

They have sufficiently developed memory and attention

Often, retraining a left-handed child to do everything with his right hand leads to delayed speech development and speech disorders. Modern mothers know that babies should not be swaddled. Any restriction of the baby’s movements inhibits not only the formation of motor skills, but also the timely development of speech functions. In a right-handed person, the actions of all moving parts of the body and especially the fingers, speech, articulation apparatus (larynx, pharynx, tongue, lips, soft palate) are genetically inherent in the left hemisphere of the brain, in a left-handed person - in the right hemisphere. If a left-handed person is not allowed to actively work with his left hand, then he will experience a spatial disruption in the formation of movements: the movements of the right, non-dominant hand will be stimulated, but the main, leading hand will remain without stimulation. By retraining the baby to hold a spoon or pencil in his right hand, parents thereby shift the innate functions of his leading right hemisphere to the left, in which he does not have a “projective” base for fine movements of the fingers and articulatory apparatus. As a result, speech developing on the basis of auditory perception “does not know” in which hemisphere it will “settle.” That is why often left-handers, who from infancy were diligently forced to do everything with their right hand, later begin to speak, pronounce many sounds incorrectly, are awkward in movements, do not know how to dance, and are deprived of an ear for music

But it is no less important that the emotional-volitional sphere of the child is disrupted. It is known that every action causes a reaction

The child becomes either stubborn or broken: weak-willed, suspicious, unsure of himself

He begins to pay attention to his speech difficulties and worries deeply about trifles. For this reason, he may develop a stutter.

And it is difficult to overcome. A left-handed child needs to be given freedom of action, and he himself will learn to do a lot with both hands.

What can a baby say before 12 months?

By 7 months, the syllables “ma”, “pa”, “ba” are clearly distinguishable and pronounced clearly. The child actively imitates animals (barking dogs, meowing cats and other sounds), well understands simple requests addressed to him (“give”, “bring”, “show”). Knows the names of most surrounding objects, although he is not yet able to name them.

At 8 months, babies actively speak in syllables. The sounds used are “a”, “g”, “k”, “b”, “p”, “u”, “m”, “e”, “n”.

9-11 months is the age at which the baby expands its vocabulary. Can pronounce up to 10 simple words consisting of one syllable or 2 repeated ones.

Not all children's words can be found in adult speech. Little ones often simplify complex names into onomatopoeias: they call a dog “av-av”, a car “bi-bi”, a train “too-too”. The child understands what he sees and can show an object if an adult names it, but is not able to reproduce a complex word on his own.

Why is he silent? Causes of speech delay in a child under 3 years of age

The reasons for speech delay can be different.
One of the most common causes of delay is hearing loss. So, if the baby does not respond to his name, does not say anything, this should worry the parents and prompt them to consult a pediatrician and ENT specialist. Often, hearing problems arise due to inflammation of the middle ear in combination with cerumen (otitis media). In this case, the doctor will prescribe antibiotics and corticoids, which the child must take for several weeks. Parents who closely monitor their child's development should consult a doctor if, at the age of 1.5 years, the child does not understand simple words, and at the age of 2 years, does not try to repeat words.

The second reason is the peculiarities of the biological maturation of the nervous system, when the child has a general developmental delay, not only speech. This often happens in premature babies.

The third reason is more serious: speech delay is only a consequence of a general developmental disorder, for example, mild mental retardation or mental retardation.

The fourth reason is lack of motivation. Typically, a similar picture develops in families where the child plays a central role. With “child-centrism,” mom and dad and grandparents define their main life task as fulfilling all the child’s whims, when at his first cry or even glance, adults grasp exactly what the child wants and immediately rush to help. The child doesn’t even need to ask for anything! As in the famous joke, when a child under 3 years old was silent, like a fish, and only spoke when he was served unsweetened tea. "How?! - the parents were surprised, - can you speak?! Why were you silent before?!” “Everything was fine before,” the kid answered calmly.

The fifth reason is pedagogical neglect and emotional dissatisfaction, when the child receives little attention and is not given due attention. These are, as a rule, children from disadvantaged families. Once in normal conditions, such children quickly catch up and begin to speak in accordance with the age norm.

The sixth reason is psychological trauma. First of all, these include early separation from the mother. For example, the mother became seriously ill, went to the hospital, and the baby remained away from the mother for some time. Or, on the contrary, the baby ended up in the hospital (even if the mother was nearby, for the child this is a blow to the psyche). Or the mother was forced to leave for several days and leave the baby in the care of relatives. For a child under one year old, this can be a serious challenge. Therefore, such things must be reported to a neurologist in order to identify the true cause of speech delay and establish the correct diagnosis.

Experts do not advise waiting until 2-3 years of age and suggest starting classes with the child already in infancy, at 7-8 months, when the baby begins to understand speech addressed to him.

The seventh reason is the lack of personal communication. Often mothers are so overwhelmed with restless children that they prefer to sit them in a playpen or in front of the TV and go about their business. Yes, and working fathers are very tired after work, and when they come home, they dream only of having a hearty dinner and taking a break from everyday worries, immersing themselves in the “television” world, and they talk to their children in terse, monosyllabic sentences. As a result, the baby hears little human speech, and he simply has no one to learn to speak from!

In addition, some parents mistakenly believe that television can help their child learn speech skills. This is wrong. Research shows that a child should hear and see speech not on a screen, but “live.” The fact is that when a person pronounces words, his entire body is included in the speech process, making certain micromovements. And the listener’s body during a conversation makes exactly the same movements with a slight delay of 40-50 milliseconds. This happens unconsciously, and the movements are not visible to the eye. That is, in order to pronounce one word, we use the whole body.

Involving the whole being (literally and figuratively) in communication, the child learns to speak at the level of consciousness, making various imitative sounds: cooing, gurgling, grunting. Before uttering his first word, the baby spends a whole year training the muscles of the body and face, learning to coordinate more than a hundred muscles involved in articulation, focusing on adults. And when a child hears speech from the speakers of a TV or radio, his body does not react to the sounds in any way.

When should a child start talking?

First of all, it is important for parents to understand that the child does not owe anything to anyone. It develops in accordance with its internal rhythm, which can differ greatly from the average statistical norms

It happens that a baby who uttered his first words very early will subsequently have a very slow expansion of his vocabulary. And vice versa, a silent person who looked like a black sheep compared to his peers can suddenly overtake them all.

When assessing your child’s progress, we recommend that you do not take the stories of your friends to heart: many mothers and fathers greatly exaggerate the successes of their child. It’s better to focus on the following key points of speech development (not forgetting that each baby’s schedule is individual).

2–4 months

Gurgling At this time, the baby begins to “walk” and “gurg.” He is not yet trying to speak, he is simply aware of the fact that certain movements of the speech apparatus can turn into sounds. That’s why “agu” is completely international—it’s a “word” that comes naturally when you open and close your mouth.

6 months

~ 1 year

First words By his first birthday, your baby learns his first real words. Yes, these are rather primitive “mom”, “dad”, “woman”, but they are no longer just a set of sounds. The child understands the meaning and addresses them to specific adults.

Soon the toddler's speech is replenished with other simple words. For example, he more or less clearly screams “oops” when he drops a toy, or “give” when he wants to get something. A baby's primary vocabulary usually consists of 5–10 words.

1-1.5 years

Expanding vocabulary Every week a child pleases his parents with new words, but mom and dad can’t always understand the child’s “dialect.” The fact is that the baby already distinguishes many words in the speech of adults, but he cannot repeat them. So “porridge” turns into “ka”, “fell” into “apa”, “bird” into “tika”. Often, a child comes up with conceptual words that combine several objects at once, for example, he uses one syllable to denote everything soft and warm - from a blanket to a dog.

The baby's set of first words is limited to nouns, verbs, and interjections.

When assessing a child’s development, it is important for parents to first assess not the number of words he speaks, but the passive vocabulary that he clearly understands in adult speech.

1.5-2 years

First sentences This is the period when children begin to speak more and more actively. The baby learns two very important words for communication - “yes” and “no”

He repeats what he hears, and may even remember entire phrases. The vocabulary expands significantly and reaches 250 or more words. It continues to be dominated by the names of surrounding objects and basic actions, but the first abstract expressions appear, for example, “hello” and “bye.”

The baby understands that words work better together and learns to form the first sentences. They are quite short - only 2-4 words, but they allow you to clearly express your desires.

2-3 years

Full-fledged speech The baby's speech becomes almost adult, because after nouns and verbs, the first words related to other parts of speech appear in it. The baby begins to use pronouns, and at the same time understands that objects have gender and number. He discovers adjectives and now not only names objects, but gives them characteristics. He masters question words and begins to constantly ask you about one thing or another. He is even able to figure out tenses, declensions and conjugations in his head, even if he doesn’t yet know what they are called.

By the age of three years, you can fully communicate with your child, and the scope of conversations is not limited to the topics of “eating, playing, sleeping.” The kid knows 800–1000 words, can tell you what he did while visiting his grandmother, answer your questions and ask you a hundred times more.

By and large, the child’s speech skills have developed. All that remains is to polish them by continuing to build your vocabulary and practice your pronunciation.

When children start talking

There is no clear answer to this question.
The thing is that children's speech occurs Baby milestone: Talking much earlier than the conscious sound of “mother” or “give”. The first form of communication is crying. Parents know that it varies depending on what the child wants to convey. For example, a high-pitched cry most likely means that the baby needs food, while a grunting whine most likely means it's time to change the diaper.

Sounds similar to real words appear at 4–6 months of age. By this time, the speech apparatus is improving and the child begins to experiment, opening and closing his mouth, inhaling and exhaling, moving his tongue, changing the shape of his lips. This is how When Do Babies Start Talking comes into being? baby babble: “a-ba-ba”, “agu” or even “mama”.

But you shouldn’t take such first words seriously: it’s an accident. The child does not yet associate his “mother”, “woman” or “dai” with specific people or actions.

If a person claims that his child spoke at 7–9 months, he is either mistaken or wishful thinking.

The first meaningful word appears Ontogenesis of speech development between 11 and 12 months. And then the process proceeds like an avalanche. By the age of one year, a child usually knows and pronounces not one, but from 2 to 20 words: “mom”, “dad”, “baba”, “give” and sometimes distorted, but nevertheless understandable “tu-tu” (train) , “bukh” (to fall) or “am” (to eat).

Actually, a year can be considered the very boundary after which confident speech appears. Of course, children are different: some start chatting at 11 months, while others remain silent until they are a year old (babbling doesn’t count). But there is an important time point. If your child does not say a single conscious word Your Child Talking Timeline by 15 months, you should definitely consult with your pediatrician. He may have to undergo additional tests, such as a hearing test or visit a neurologist.

At what months do babies begin to speak their first words?

The baby can say “da-da-da” or “na-na-na.” By 9 months, the first words “ma-ma”, “ba-ba”, “pa-pa” appear. But the child pronounces them accidentally. The baby begins to pronounce the first conscious words by 12 months. They are easily confused with the babble from which they emerge.

According to the famous doctor Komarovsky, the time at which a child begins to speak largely depends on the parents. It should be noted that active speech is formed quite abruptly.

After a while, a new leap occurs: the child begins to memorize 10-12 words per day. At this stage, the active and passive dictionaries are equalized and replenished simultaneously.

According to pediatricians and psychologists, gender has a certain influence. So, girls develop and begin to speak faster than boys.

When do phrases and simple sentences appear?

The speech of one-and-a-half-year-old children is usually understood only by close relatives. The baby pronounces only stressed syllables or the endings of phrases, but it is this period that is recognized as the starting point for the formation of an active spoken vocabulary. Often phrases sound like this: “Give me a kuku,” which translates to “Give me a doll.”

After 2 years, the baby tries to speak in sentences - these are still 2-3 words that do not obey any grammatical norms. If your child does not speak in sentences until the age of 2.5 years, then he should be shown to a specialist - a defectologist and a pediatric neurologist to rule out developmental delays.

READ ALSO: how to teach a child to speak at 2 years old according to Komarovsky’s advice?

Children become full-fledged interlocutors at the age of three. They already coordinate words well and can answer a number of questions. Some little ones can already philosophize; they are visited by difficult thoughts: where do the stars disappear in the morning, why does the wind blow, where do children come from?

Causes of delayed speech development

Almost every child who reaches the age of 2 begins to speak actively, and new words come from his lips every day. By the age of 2, a baby's brain matures and he expresses his emotions through conversation. But it also happens that your baby’s speech development may be a little late. Let's look at the reasons why a child may start speaking later:

Underdevelopment of the muscular function of the mouth.

The baby loves soft food more than hard food, and food constantly falls out of his mouth.

If you are faced with problems in the baby’s nutrition, or maybe the child really cannot chew and swallow pieces of solid food, then you should watch the online course “The ABCs of complementary feeding”, where we will go through step by step what and how to do so that the child eats well . Look at the full course description and choose your option of participation!>>>

The child mainly breathes through his mouth, speaks little and is also slurred, and also has increased salivation - this means that his mouth muscles are underdeveloped. Often this problem occurs due to early weaning. Read about what to do if your baby is not getting enough breast milk>>>

There are some exercises that help strengthen the muscles of the mouth:

Blow, whistle. Any activity involving tense lip closure gives a good effect. Soap bubbles, pipes, and various whistles can help you with this;
Suck. Let your baby drink juices, compotes, from a straw more often so that he can suck in his cheeks;
Imitate sounds. Offer to imitate the sounds of animals, car sirens, and trains several times a day.

Poor concentration of auditory attention. With this problem, the child practically does not understand long sentences or does not hear background noise.

Read books familiar to him, make sure that the baby concentrates on every sound and syllable; Draw attention to humor, for example, replace a familiar word in a poem with another, funny one, and give him the opportunity to think about what has changed in the sentence? Comment on your every action, show and name the objects that surround it. Speak clearly and loudly.

Hearing problems. With poor hearing, children's development naturally slows down. The main thing is not to miss the very moment when it is still possible to stimulate the ear canals leading to the parts of the brain responsible for this function. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for hearing problems to be discovered late. There are several signs for each age that can be used to determine whether a child has such problems:

Newborn. If you clap your hands at a short distance from the child, he should flinch, and when you speak, he should calm down;
At 3-4 months, when you address the child, he does not turn his head in the direction of the sound;
At 7-8 months, the baby does not repeat simple sounds and does not babble;
From 8 months, upon hearing familiar voices, he should immediately turn around, looking for who is speaking. Respond in his own way if they talk to him.

How to understand that a child has speech problems

A mother is the most important expert on her own baby. Therefore, if it seems to her that the child has difficulties pronouncing sounds or reacting to what he hears, this is already enough to talk with the doctor.

But beyond “it seems,” there are objective signs of speech problems. They vary depending on age.

3–4 months: the child does not babble or experiment with sounds.
5–6 months: does not react to unexpected sounds, does not turn his head when called, does not laugh.
8–9 months: does not respond to his own name, babbling is rare and monotonous.
12 months: does not say a single word, not even “mama”, “give” or “na”.
13–18 months: Does not show simple objects in or around a picture (for example, does not understand the question “Where is the ball?”), does not have at least six words in the vocabulary by age 18 months, and does not learn new ones.

Another alarming symptom is the loss of acquired language skills. For example, if by 18 months the child uses the “normative” six words, but you know for sure that just a couple of months ago there were more than 20, tell the pediatrician about this regression.

How to help a child?

If a child at three years old does not utter a word, then parents need to help him develop speech skills. The first thing to do is to thoroughly examine the baby. It is necessary to show it to an otolaryngologist to assess hearing acuity. It is necessary to check complex psychophysiological processes.

To do this, you should visit a neurologist. You also need to consult with a child psychologist, speech therapist, or audiologist. Only by identifying the cause of the disorder during the examination will it be possible to take the correct measures to develop speech.

It is important to create favorable conditions for the development of the child:

improve the atmosphere in the family

Parents should not sort things out in front of the baby; pay sufficient attention to the child; communicate more with your baby. Listening to mom and dad, he replenishes his passive vocabulary and remembers articulation

It is helpful to ask simple questions; protect the child from worries and stress.

If facial muscles are weak, special speech therapy and general massage and articulation exercises will help. It is advisable to have these procedures performed by a specialist. At home, parents can use general strengthening exercises.

The muscles of the mouth are well trained by stretching the lips with a tube and stretching a smile. It is also useful to make faces. If fine motor skills are poorly developed, then it will be useful for parents to conduct developmental activities with their child.

Playing with kinetic sand will benefit your child

Playing with kinetic sand, moving cubes from one bucket to another, combing and dressing the doll are recommended. Fine motor skills are well developed by turning the pages of a book, tearing a sheet of paper, drawing, stringing beads.

You can massage your fingers and palms. It is done using the following techniques: stroking, rubbing, kneading. Before the session, you need to lubricate your hands with oil or cream. For neurological disorders, you may have to undergo medication and physical therapy.

The following drugs restore the functionality of the nervous system, stimulate the functioning of areas of the brain responsible for speech:

Neuromultivitis;
Cortexin;
Pantogam;
Encephabol.

Medicines containing iodine and glycine also help well. Only a specialist should prescribe treatment.

Physiotherapeutic procedures contribute to speech development:

magnetic therapy;
electrical stimulation;
massage.

If the reason for poor speech development is that the family is bilingual, then you need to start speaking one language in front of the baby. If a child does not communicate due to attention deficit, then parents need to reconsider their attitude towards the child. They should talk to the baby more, play with him, and conduct training sessions.

Doman cards

During the waking period, the child should read fairy tales and poems, sing songs. You can expand your vocabulary using Doman cards. Some experts recommend having a pet to stimulate speech development. The child will be interested in the cat or dog and try to talk to it.

When the baby starts talking

What time do children start talking? There are no clear boundaries, there are only approximate ones, because each child is individual.

Adults should not speak in a raised voice in the presence of a baby, because in this case the child will not speak sooner. So communicate with each other and with your child kindly and gently.

The big mistake of mothers who come to me for consultations is that they do not even give the child the opportunity to speak. They have such close and good contact with the child that as soon as the baby raises an eyebrow, the mother has already understood everything and runs to get the right thing.

Where is the incentive for development?

Where are the difficulties that the child overcomes and thereby stimulates the speech centers?

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On a note! Most often, the “explosion” of speech occurs around 1-1.2 years. If the child is silent, then the next leap in speech development will occur around 2 years.

When a child begins to speak his first words, parental happiness knows no bounds. Get ready for the fact that the first word will not necessarily be “mom”, it could be “give” or “na”, but soon you will definitely hear the long-awaited and most important word in life.

When a child starts talking mom and dad

Typically, a child can babble the word “mama” at the age of 6 months. But this does not apply to conscious conversion. The child begins to purposefully pronounce the word “mother” around 10-12 months.

Let's start talking in phrases

At 2 years old, the baby can already speak many words. When he enters the third year of life, he begins to pronounce complex sentences. The baby knows how to ask questions, make suggestions, and answer.

From the age of 2.5 years, the toddler understands in what cases the prepositions “along” and “through” are used. Speech abilities improve in the fourth to fifth years of life.

Why do children start talking late?

Anna Vladimirovna, in recent years the number of children with speech delays has increased sharply. You were the first to describe how this relates to brain development. What's going on?

The development of a child is based on three pillars: the state of his brain, his behavioral activity in a rich and diverse external environment and constant communication with adults. In recent years, all these conditions have been, to put it mildly, negative. But I will answer specifically the question about the dysfunctional brain development of many modern children. Everyone knows that the brain has a cortex and subcortical sections. Everyone knows that a child normally begins to speak actively at about 2-3 years of age. Why not three months or a year? Because only at 2-3 years old the cerebral cortex is ready to take on the speech function. Until this time, her speech talents mature and are formed due to the rapid activity of subcortical structures. This can be compared to a flower: for it to bloom, the roots and stem must become strong, and buds must appear. So: approximately 70% of children with speech development disorders today have one or another deficiency in the subcortical structures of the brain. The same ones that are responsible for the development of any mental function and for the development of the child as a whole. Why? Because in addition to their own unique functions, subcortical structures “launch” interhemispheric interactions and all cortical systems of the brain. If this process is disrupted or distorted, full speech competence cannot be expected. Actually, this is what everyone sees today: children talk “with porridge in their mouths,” write with monstrous errors, cannot express their thoughts... Have there been such children before? Yes, but they were only 10-15%.

70%?! Why so much?

Nobody knows for sure. These troubles began in the mid-80s of the last century. In general, we have become significantly less healthy than our grandparents. I think everyone will agree that the twentieth century is a century of unprecedented stress, which from generation to generation “weakened” humanity - how could they not affect mothers, and, accordingly, the intrauterine development of children? Poor environment, additives, water, air, abundance of medications, birth injuries - we don’t even discuss all this. But, it seems to me, the most important factor was the change in the Earth’s electromagnetic field. Just 40 years ago we did not have such a number of emitters: televisions, computers, mobile phones, etc. Our “brain-body” is of a physical-chemical, electrical nature, and other waves greatly influence its work.

And yet it is not very clear why all this hit the subcortical structures.

Because they are the first to respond to any unfavorable changes in the external environment. This is the center of regulation of our entire body, it is the most vulnerable. When we say that when the weather changes, our head starts to hurt, our eyesight becomes weak and we want to sleep, in the language of neuropsychology this means: “Your subcortical structures reacted this way.”

Are they the only ones to blame for the fact that children start talking later?

They and the cervical and thoracic spines intimately connected to them. Many modern children, as I say, “have no back.” It would seem that we are talking about something so lofty – about speech. And it is actually formed, starting with the back muscles, when the child turns, crawls, and begins to walk. Both muscles and nerves from the abdomen to the top of the head - they are all involved in one way or another in the act of speaking. Therefore, I really want to advise parents whose children have not spoken at the age of 2: go to a good osteopath. Check if the baby's muscles and spine are okay. Please note that today everyone reacts indifferently to the word “hypertonicity”: “... everyone has this.” But this is the first call about a child’s serious problems.

Here's a recent example. A 6-year-old non-speaking child was brought to me. I started watching it in front of the students. I noticed that his tongue was in a completely crumpled, tense state. I turn the boy’s back to me, go over the muscles and press on the lower part of the trapezius muscle, which holds part of our back and shoulders. You understand how I press - lightly. And suddenly the whole hall gasps. What's happened? And his tongue stuck out! That is, this shriveled tongue was kept in good shape by the trapezius muscle! And speech therapists have been working with this child for several years. The question is: what are they working with? How can they help him?

In order for a child to speak, his “brain-body” must be ready for this. And for this he must fully go through all stages of his sensorimotor development. If something is wrong here, a lot of all sorts of somatic problems cling to it, and deviations in the development of behavior in general arise. And imperceptibly, day after day, all this interferes. But adults don’t pay attention to this, they teach him numbers from the age of six months - instead of doing basic gymnastics, neuropsychological exercises and dancing.

Didn't these problems exist before?

As I already said, before there were incomparably fewer such children. And before, children ran, jumped, went to visit their grandmothers in the village for the whole summer... You run to the “Cossacks-Robbers”, you jump into dodgeball, you jump into hopscotch, jump rope, climb into a burdock - and the back muscles themselves fall into place. All this, if you like, is natural osteopathy. Moreover, day after day. Many things corrected themselves. In addition, any game is communication, attention, emotions, perception, thinking, rules - that is, the entire spectrum of mental development. And now? Nowadays children are sitting in front of tablets, and problems are piling up.

Well, what if they don’t want to go for a walk? If they are more comfortable and interesting at home?

More precisely, if adults have convinced him that home is more interesting... You can be democrats and invite your child to wear this hat or that one, go to the park or to the sandbox. But the fact that you should walk and actively play with him every day is not even discussed.

What else should parents do?

Talk to your child constantly. Read books to him, watch cartoons with him, where the characters speak a lot and well, and do not exchange interjections. Discuss with him everything that happens around. A child’s speech develops only as a reflection from someone speaking. If this is not the case, the child becomes, to one degree or another, Mowgli.

Do people really read a lot now?

Yes, and first the parents don’t read, and then the child himself doesn’t read. “Well, what should we do? Well, he doesn’t like this business! But I won’t force him,” politically correct mothers and fathers tell me during consultations. But you understand: reading is new words and sentences, from which, like a Lego constructor, a child’s speech is formed. There have always been children who were inclined to read and those who were not. But there were books in every house. Yes, somewhere there were 100 of them, somewhere 10 thousand, but everyone read the required minimum.

When we read, we not only borrow new words. We also reflect the wonderful thoughts of smart people. Following the plot, we involuntarily appropriate the author’s thoughts - and learn to think. We may agree with the heroes or not, but our brain perceives and remembers these algorithms - that you can think like this, and also like that. And the richer this repertoire, the richer the person’s personality and consciousness. Of course, instead of three books, you can read three lines on the Internet. But then your brain will work like this, on these three chords - lines.

There is also a version that children nowadays begin to speak later because they have been wearing diapers for a long time.

It must be clearly understood that development begins from the moment when the child becomes uncomfortable. Wet diapers are just one of the first such serious discomforts that trigger many thought processes. “Yeah, it’s unpleasant for me, I need to tell the world about it. I scream, but no one comes, I need to call louder. If I scream like this, they run up faster..." And now some connections are fixed in the child’s brain, he begins to establish a dialogue with his mother, hear her intonations, see her facial expressions, repeat them... Of course, it’s stupid to refuse diapers (I don’t supporter of cave life), but you need to be more careful with them. After all, the constant absence of unpleasant sensations in this area of the body reduces its sensitivity, which can lead to enuresis, masturbation, and various sexual deviations.

What about the saturated information field in which modern children grow up? Does it somehow affect speech development?

There is no rich information field. Most of what is broadcast around is information garbage. And precisely because our children are constantly in it, nothing worthwhile happens with the development of their speech... There is another, more important point. For some reason we forget that speech is a social contract. Humanity once agreed to use the word “la-la” to call this object, and the word “la-la-la” to call this specific action. Speech is some kind of labels, tags hung on our actions with the outside world. Until the age of two, a child must act, move away, touch, smell, so that the label “sits” on his specific action, specific situational perception. If you see a red cup and I say it's a "red cup" and you can touch it and even break it, it's memorable. And if I say the words “cup, red, drink,” but you don’t see it, you may remember the word, and then - I remember the word, but what is it for... Moreover, all these words will soon be forgotten. Show your child the cup. Give it to him. Let him drink milk, tea, compote from it. Play with him the game “cup on a saucer...under a napkin...into a cup-from-a-cup...”. Even if he breaks it, and you discuss together that it turns out to be fragile, it breaks, scatters into many fragments - look how many new words there are at once, what space for thought! Each word must be filled with a specific action, must be felt, lived.

As long as mom, dad, and grandmother are talking birds, as long as the child is inside these actions, as long as he himself can see, touch, smell, feel everything, his speech will develop. Remember how in Faust? “In the beginning there was a thing.” This very “thing” has begun to be washed away from the lives of modern children. There is nothing for speech to “sit on”.

This, it turns out, is why foreign languages are best learned in an environment...

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Is your child ready for school?

Certainly. There are abstract verbs, adjectives and nouns that we hear or learn. And there is, what is called, language learning with immersion... Abstract words-tags are superimposed: 1) on concretely tangible objects, people, animals, natural phenomena, 2) on their color, smell, shape and other qualities, 3) on their location in space: “above-under, left-right, front-behind, from behind...” and 4) for some actions. Being in the environment allows you to clearly see everything that is described not just in words, but in whole sentences. A person (especially a child) does not see himself from the outside, but sees others. That’s why he remembers faster how to describe it in words.

Is there some kind of algorithm for parents whose children do not speak or speak poorly? Who should they go to first - a speech therapist?

It is best to start doing preventive exercise with any child: from infancy, perform simple motor exercises, about which I have already sung a thousand songs. Everything has been published, I don’t see any problems... Regarding logistics, this is an unexpectedly difficult question. I know many brilliant speech therapists who have incorporated neuropsychological methods into their practice. And I know those who decided to call themselves a neuropsychologist without having the slightest idea about neuropsychology. If the situation is favorable, I insist on the primary participation of a neuropsychologist. Not because I don't respect speech therapists. But because competent neuropsychologists see what speech therapists, due to their specificity, do not pay attention to. After all, speech problems are rarely isolated. They go in the same direction with problems of movement, perception, and spatial concepts. The same back problems that I talked about... it is the neuropsychologist who aims to holistically consider the child’s deviations and correct them accordingly. And then - yes, you need a speech therapist. And ideally, it is best when everyone (neuropsychologist, osteopath, speech therapist) acts in conjunction, when they agree among themselves on tactics and strategy. And when parents not only listen to them and obediently take their child to classes, but also take an active part in his life. They will talk to him, play, read, and become guides for him into the world of speech, where the doors open to all the riches of human culture.

Author: Evgenia Danilova Published: February 20, 2021