A child's first word - when do children start speaking?

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All parents, without exception, wait for the moment when the child begins to say mom and dad.
Many people think that children's speech begins to develop on the day the baby pronounces the first word. In fact, for this to happen, we need long-term preparation of the articulation organs, their coordinated work, the ability to switch, mobility of the lower jaw, lips, tongue, and soft palate. It is impossible to pronounce exactly those sounds that make up the first words if the child does not know how to distinguish them from phonemes that sound similar, for example, words such as cat-whale, slide-crust and others. More precisely, human speech is formed during the prenatal period, when the organs of hearing, articulation and brain structures are formed. These processes are influenced by heredity, illnesses suffered by the mother, the presence or absence of bad habits, and the lifestyle of the baby’s parents. The course of labor and the state of health of the baby are important factors in his successful debut as a speaking and thinking person.

We will tell you at what age children begin to speak their first sounds, what this depends on, at what age children begin to speak in sentences, and how to help them go through each stage of speech development in a timely manner.

Speech in the first weeks and months of life

Immediately after birth, intensive development of brain structures begins, and new connections between neurons are established. At the same time, the organs of hearing and articulation develop, and physical and phonemic hearing is formed. Without proper hearing, children cannot master speech, since distortion or absence of sound signals entering the brain makes it impossible to develop speech skills.

In the first weeks and months of life, it is the speech of others that stimulates the initial stage of speech development. The baby listens to the speech of loved ones, he calms down for a while when he hears his mother’s voice, the impulsive movements of his arms and legs stop for a while. After some more time, he begins to turn his head towards the source of the sound.

Not all mothers and fathers talk to newborns and infants in the first months of life. They think this is unnecessary, because the baby doesn’t understand anything yet. Such one-sided “conversations” between parents and children, which accompany their bathing and waking, develop auditory concentration and the desire to respond. Attentive parents may notice how the child tries to move his lips, as if he wants to say something. It’s even better if parents often call the baby by name, show him toys, call the child, not moving much away from the crib.

This is the age at which a child begins to speak vowels and consonants. Up to 3 months, the child pronounces the following sounds:

• vowels – A, U, E;
• consonants – M, K, X, P, B, G.

These phonemes still sound unclear and are pronounced involuntarily. These skills mark the first stage of speech development – ​​humming. In addition, the cry of a 1–3 month old baby is quite expressive. By intonation, the mother can determine whether the baby is bored, wants to eat, or it’s time to change wet diapers, that is, he has begun to master intonation.

Reason 11. Alalia

This term means primary underdevelopment of speech centers. Occurs as a result of damage to the cerebral cortex during early infancy or fetal development. This condition is described in more detail in the article about alalia.

Let’s just say that you won’t be able to cope with alalia on your own; be sure to seek help from specialists.

Also check if your child has echolalia.

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.

What are the first words?

Now let’s dispel the myth about the first word. Today in pediatrics it is customary to consider the first word to be one that is used in the same meaning and refers to the same objects or actions. That is, with this approach, the baby’s vocabulary may contain distortions and onomatopoeia (kaka, wawa, tsatsa, aw-aw, bibika, am-am). At the same time, “wava” means a lot of objects or actions that cause pain, “kaka” means everything that is dirty or not suitable for food. In such cases, we can assume that the child says the first word (otherwise, such syllable combinations are a sign of babbling). For the appearance of such words, the approximate age will be 10–12 months.

At the beginning of mastering the skill of speaking, the baby pronounces words consisting of one repeated syllable or two different ones. More significant achievements will come later - everything has its time.

The baby says the first word associatively, relating it to the object in the field of vision and to the analogies that it evokes in the baby. A child’s first word is not always “mama.” For example, an adult may not understand that a car tire is called “katan” (the kid saw dad rolling it once and remembered the association: dad said “roll”). Or, while playing in the bathtub with rubber ducklings, I remembered that “ducklings” can be found in water. When he sees a puddle or lake on a walk, he can now say “duck.”

If the association is stable and can be recognized, the child speaks words. Moreover, if a child under 2 years of age has not seen ducks in life or in pictures, he will not say this word.

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?”

What to do if your baby speaks poorly?

If deviations are noted, lack of the required level of development when the child should start speaking, you need to go to the pediatrician. The doctor will rule out medical causes or prescribe appropriate treatment.

You should talk more with the baby from the first days of life. There is no need to lisp: the child must hear the correct pronunciation of words in order to pronounce them without mistakes in the future.

During the conversation, you should try to interest the child: you need to speak emotionally. In the evening you should read books or tell fairy tales of your own composition.

If the oral apparatus is poorly developed, special exercises are selected to help strengthen weak muscles. It is useful to blow, whistle, and draw in air.

Regular physical activity will help develop mental abilities. You should dance with your child more often, sing, and develop fine motor skills with the help of special toys, games, finger exercises, and massage of the inside of the palms.

When do the first words and phrases appear?

It is impossible to name the exact date at which children begin to speak their first words. They can appear at 8–9 months and at 1 year 2 months. And all this is the norm. According to the observations of parents and teachers, girls usually start talking earlier than boys, although there are exceptions. At the turn between the first and second years, the baby’s vocabulary contains from 2 to 20 words. Usually this:

• simplified words (ma-ma, pa-pa, la-la, ki-sa, am-am);
• onomatopoeia (beep, peek-a-boo, peep-peep).

It is at this age that the child speaks to his mother. Why do children pronounce words in their native language? Because the adults around him single out from the baby’s babbling syllables and sound combinations that are inherent specifically in their language system, and repeat only them. Therefore, the period of babbling is important for the development of children's speech.

At one and a half years or a little later, the baby begins to combine words into sentences, as long as they consist of two words. The words in them are not consistent, an example of the following phrase: “Give me a doll” (give me a doll), “Papa is not there” (dad is not at home). But this is the age when attentive mothers notice that their baby begins to speak in sentences.

WE HELP TO SPEAK

It is usually believed that girls begin to speak a little earlier, they are more emotional and spontaneous. Although one can argue with this: each baby develops individually. There are reserved girls and active boys, and it is impossible to predict which of them will start speaking in sentences first. And the point is not only in natural inclinations, but also in what, how and how much parents do with the child in order to stimulate the development of his speech skills.

What does it mean to stimulate? “Push” the speech apparatus, improve the baby’s movements and do everything so that he is ready to speak as early as possible. How to achieve this? Comprehensively influence the child’s brain centers responsible for the development of fine and gross motor skills, thinking, and a sense of balance, which are associated with the center of speech; develop articulatory and conceptual apparatus. The exercises and activities below will help with this.

• From about 4 months, the baby needs to be taught to touch and feel, and then grab a variety of objects (differing in size, materials, texture, properties), developing his tactile sensations. Fine motor skills are stimulated by rubbing massage and finger games. As he gets older, the baby will be able to manipulate small objects: twist, knock, lay out, string, screw, etc.
• It is useful to change the child’s position in space: tilt, lift, circle, turn over, swing. Subsequently, the vestibular apparatus is trained by children's bicycles, swings, ball games, and walking on a log.
• It is imperative to develop a child’s articulatory apparatus. To do this, it is good to play imitation of different sounds (wind, rain, the noise of a vacuum cleaner, the hum of an airplane or car) or play at the zoo, imitating the voices of a variety of animals. At the same time, the mother must clearly and slowly show the baby how she receives sound. It’s even better to do this in front of a mirror, so the baby learns to compare his actions with his mother’s. Such simple articulation gymnastics is quite enough at first. More complex exercises for older children can be found here.
• Reading books, poems, and nursery rhymes helps the child learn the rhythm of speech, intonation, and enrich his passive vocabulary.
• An active speech environment is an indispensable condition for a child to speak in a timely manner: first in simple words, and then in phrases. You need to constantly talk with your baby about everything: what is happening, what is needed for what, what is it called, where are we going, why, etc. Even if the child is not yet able to repeat all this, he accumulates a passive vocabulary, enriches his horizons and constantly has Here is an example that verbal communication is necessary.
• Singing also promotes speech development. When a mother sings, the child develops hearing, memory, and a sense of rhythm. When he sings himself, the muscles of the articulatory apparatus are relaxed, which makes it easier to master sound pronunciation.
• After a year, it is useful to sometimes turn on the “misunderstanding mother.” During this period, children usually actively use facial expressions or gestures (especially the index finger). Therefore, if you indulge your baby all the time, giving or allowing everything that he expresses with gestures, he simply will not have the need to use speech. And if the mother stubbornly does not understand the baby, she will have to work hard to somehow express her desires using words.

For proper speech development, it is important to develop breathing. Poor breathing can cause your child to speak too softly. Or he will calm down towards the end of a short phrase, gasping for air in the middle of a word, speaking excitedly.

Simple games that your baby will play with pleasure help improve breathing:

• you can blow out the candles;
• blow (pipe, whistle, horn - any children's musical instrument will do);
• blow bubbles in a glass of water (by blowing into it through a straw);
• blow bubbles;
• blow on dandelions or on a paper butterfly tied to a string;
• blow paper or cotton pieces off a table or plate;
• blowing on toys in the bathroom while bathing.

To ensure that your little one begins to speak promptly and correctly, always set an example for your child to speak correctly. Constant lisp and distortion of words following the example of a baby, at his speech level, will lead to the fact that he will internalize this as the norm. Let him say “meow”, and you answer: “Yes, it’s a cat.” And explain what he doesn’t yet understand using concepts that he already knows.

How to stimulate the pronunciation of words at 1 year old

By the age of 1, speech is not yet the most important means of communication for children. It is necessary to teach the baby to use speech. To do this, you do not need to immediately give the toy that the baby wants to take. First you need to say the name of the toy (you can simplify it): “Should I give you a la-la?” Let the baby try to repeat “la-la”, “beep-beep”. When presenting the desired item, you can emphasize: “This is lala, na.”

The vocabulary of an adult communicating with a baby should contain both full and abbreviated words: “kar-kar”, “ding-ding”, “knock-knock”, “tick-tock”. These substitutes for full words are temporary and are needed only because they are easier for the child to pronounce.

In order for children to establish a connection between a word and an action, you need to ask him to perform some action: give or take a toy, show a familiar object, wave a hand. Also verbalize all the actions that he performs with toys. For the same purpose, they play with 2–4 familiar toys and ask the baby, for example, to take a ball, throw it or catch it. Adults carry out all actions emotionally, clearly pronouncing both words-objects and words-actions.

What does a baby say from one year to two?

At the age of one to one and a half years, children introduce phrases into speech. The child begins to understand shapes and colors well, recognizes animals and household objects, and can point to fairy-tale characters. Speech is quickly enriched: the child learns to speak in sentences that gradually become longer.

Closer to 2 years, the child will begin to ask and formulate questions. Gradually understands more and more complex requests, better describes what he observes around him.

Tips for active parents

The development of a baby’s speech directly depends on whether it develops spontaneously, or whether parents take direct part in its development. This determines at what age children begin to speak sounds/words/sentences. Positive conditions for the formation of children's speech:

• There is no need to force speech development with frequent exercises that are not appropriate for the baby’s age - there is a high risk of speech negativism, stuttering and nervous tics, since the capabilities of the child’s brain are not limitless.
• There is no need to lisp, faking your speech as a child’s speech, and often use diminutive suffixes - the only thing worse than this can be a complete disregard for communication.
• Delicately correct speech mistakes made by your child, never make him laugh, but show him an example of the correct pronunciation of a given speech utterance. For example, I see houses, yes, you see houses.
• Protect your baby from communicating with people with speech defects (burr, stutter), and especially with illiterate speaking adults (put down - lies, mouths - mouths, beautiful cat - beautiful cat), this “infects” and “invades” children’s speech so much that Such imitations are eradicated with great difficulty.
• When reading children's works, watching cartoons with your child, always explain unfamiliar words, the actions of the characters, and pay attention to vivid turns of speech.

It is very useful to record and listen to the baby’s speech every month - humming, babbling, first phrases, reading poetry. Such an archive will one day become an excellent gift for an older child and your grandchildren.

Today we answered the question of when should a child start speaking and at what months do the first sounds appear. If you suspect a delay in speech development in your baby, consult us. We will dispel anxiety, and if it is objective, we will tell you how to talk or simply teach your child to speak. We know more than a dozen examples of how parents sit and wait for their child to speak at 3, 4 and even 5 years old, although the development of big problems is already clearly visible. Ask us, we've been doing this all our lives!

Reason 4. Bilingual family

Bilingual children “have the right” to begin to speak with some lag behind the norm. Hearing different languages ​​spoken around them, they find themselves in a more difficult situation than their peers who only need to master one language.

In order to correctly construct speech, a child needs to separate one language from another. This requires some time. So it is quite possible that there is a delay in the onset of speech formation, the absence of common sentences, and errors in the grammatical construction of phrases.

Are there any downsides to homeschooling reading?

Lack of consistency is the main problem of independent lessons in teaching reading. In addition, at home, parents usually miss such an important part of the lesson as the sound analysis of words, and the child may also have difficulty breaking words into syllables. It can be difficult to correct this mistake later, so it is better to immediately entrust a professional teacher with teaching the child to read and write. This can be either a private tutor or a teacher of preparatory courses for the first grade - such classes are held in literally every school today.

Why doesn't the child start talking?

The reasons why a child starts speaking late or speaks poorly can be different:

• complications during pregnancy and childbirth;
• genetics;
• damage to the hearing organs;
• lack of microelements;
• nervous system problems;
• social factors in the form of lack of communication with significant adults;
• obstacles organized by adults: pacifiers, use of gadgets, feeding non-solid foods.

First of all, it is important to understand whether the problems relate to the medical or pedagogical sphere in order to know which specialist to contact.