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Babies and the Development of Language

Dr Paul Warren

Language provides not just communication, but a pleasure of its own. Teenagers on the phone are not just communicating as such; they are enjoying language. And babies do the same with their babble. They take pleasure in making noise. The messy noises with which babies experiment, are the second important step toward the exceedingly complex skill of language mastery. The first? Hearing.

One of the very best exercises in controlling mouth and tongue a baby can perform is to simply trade happy noises with an adult.

Children who develop the best language skills seem to come from homes where they are spoken to like human beings right from birth.

From birth to six months, your newborn will attune to the unique nuances, sounds and rhythms of his or her birth language, be it inflection or a dipthong, (a monosyllable comprised of two vowel sounds). By the age of one year, the baby’s window will have closed to all except the sounds of its birth language.

We doubt that newborns comprehend the meaning of words, as such, but we know they are preparing themselves to communicate by developing two crucial skills. The first, and probably most critical, is listening. An infant begins from birth to recognize the specific sound of his or her primary caretaker’s voice, and that primary caretaker may not be Mummy. Daddy, adoptive parents, or another – whoever is in charge - rings baby’s first bells. As the baby grows, he will become so attached to his caretaker’s voice that, as that person enters a room and speaks, he will voluntarily turn his head in her direction.

The other skill newborns develop, as a prerequisite to language development, is understanding the concept of communication, both as pitcher and as catcher. Crying, though pretty basic and simple is a pitching attempt. When babies’ crying brings the desired result – food warmth, dryness, cudding – they learn that, they can indeed tell the world what they want with some hope of getting that desire met.

However rudimentary, the very act of communicating, the joining of what I am thinking with what you are thinking, is a giant victory for the spirit. It is a reaching out, absolutely necessary to the growth and happiness of the human soul.

How soon can babies discern meaning – that is, be on the catching end? On record is the observation that a normally hearing baby, the child of hearing-impaired parents, signed “milk” at the age of three months.

Babies need to be spoken to just like we do to other adults with full sentences and the inclusion of the rise and fall of our voice. The skill of a baby learning to speak is not an imitation of sounds but the reproduction of sounds carrying meaning.

True language development is a complicated business. Breathing, tone of voice, the intricate maneuvering of tongue, lips, and mouth, together with incredibly exact control of the voice box, all come together in a complex and utterly fascinating phenomenon, human speech.

Helping baby speak

1. Converse with your child face to face – not just around him. When you are talking to other children or adults, occasionally include your child. You can send no unspoken message more powerful than the one that says your baby is a real and communicating human being who counts. This is a message your child needs to understand from day one.
2. Respond enthusiastically to babblings and initial words.
3. Talk about things that interest you and your baby – things that you both experience together. Know that a baby’s attention span is short, and accessible memory even shorter. The baby may not remember the blackbird come down and steal a potato chip in the park, but talk about it anyway.
4. As much as possible, use specific, consistent words that name certain objects over and over. Each time you fix your baby’s cereal, say “cereal” not “food” sometimes and “cereal” sometimes.“Yum, isn’t that cereal good Joel?” “We are off to the shop to buy you some cereal. It’s just in the trolley until we pay for it.” Each time the baby will be hearing the word “cereal”, he will be associating it with that gooey, tasty stuff that goes in his mouth.When the association seems consistent ( and it doesn’t take long) then you can branch out into oatmeal, pabulum and such.
5. Don’t correct those first mangled words. Your baby is trying his or her best to speak and hear. No one expects a child’s first crayon attempts to look like Van Gogh; simialarly, earl speech attempts are stick persons with strange lines. It is better to repeat the word or phrase correctly without drawing any attention to the mistake.
6. Use animated gestures and voice inflections. Yes overact. Babies love it. If you doubt that play a game of peek a boo with wildly exaggerated hand movements and voice inflection. Then repeat the game using a monotone voice and a deadpan expression. Facial expressions and gestures add a great deal of meaning to the bare words: they reinforce the baby’s understanding about what real communication is.