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The
First Year
Your
baby's first words (Month-by-Month progress)
Your baby's first word is a major
milestone in both your lives. The ability to speak opens the door on a
whole new way of relating to the world for your baby. Suddenly, crying
is not the only means of communication for her. You realize that soon the
both of you will be speaking the same language.
Even before your baby can speak,
she learns a great deal about language. She is aware of the etiquette of
a conversation, that people speak in turns. She is aware of the changes
in intonation, sounds and rhythms. It is still not clear how speech develops
in a child. What we do know, is that there is a rough schedule of speech
development that most children follow.
Up to and around six
weeks
At this stage, your baby will exhibit
the most primitive form of speech - crying and gurgling. When you smile
at her, your baby will respond by gurgling at you. Your conversations will
be rudimentary and will involve your baby gurgling in response to your
voice and then waiting for your reply.
Three to four months
This is the magic moment when you
hear your baby say "Maa" or "Paa" for the first time. It is thrilling to
think that your baby is calling out to you, but in fact your baby does
not understand the significance of what she has said. At this stage, the
sounds she makes will be in the form of single syllables with an open vowel
sound like "ma" or "pa", for instance.
Seven months
Your baby's cooing will progress
to two-syllabled words, which are formed by repeating the first, syllable
- "mama", for instance. She will also become more responsive to the sound
of human voices and to music.
Eight months
Your baby will continue her babbling,
but now she will shout to attract your attention. She will listen to your
conversations with others avidly, turning her head from one person to the
other. She will try to sing along when you play music or when you sing
to her.
Nine months
Your baby will now be making sounds,
technically known as "jargoning." She will start combining syllables and
phrase them like sentences.
Ten to eleven months
Look out for your baby's first "real"
word. It will probably relate to what is most important in her little world:
mama, dada, dog, cat, bat, ball.
Her
pronunciation seems so rudimentary
It is very likely that your baby
will have difficulty pronouncing consonants until the age of four or five.
She will have a tendency to drop the consonant from the beginning or the
end of words, e.g. spoon becomes "poon", cat becomes "ca". Another method
that children use to simplify speech is to repeat the consonant sound.
That is why "doggy" becomes "doddy" or "goggy".
How
do I know if there is a problem
There is no fixed deadline by which
your child should be speaking. However, if your child has not started speaking
by the time she is two and a half, you must seek expert help. Your child
may have a hearing problem or a speech defect. Problems like these have
a better chance of being treated if they are caught at the early stage.
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