Child speech development from 0 to one year

What kind of speech is there, you will say, if from him you can only hear a loud “ooh!”, and in moments of calm and blissful mood - “aha” and “aha”, not counting other indistinct and unintelligible sounds. Many parents believe that before their child utters his first words (and this usually happens at the age of about a year), it is useless to talk to him, since he, they say, still does not understand anything and cannot yet learn anything.

However, “unintelligible sounds” are already the formation of speech, and it begins long before the appearance of the first words. And already at this very first stage, the main function of speech is clearly visible - communication. Yes, yes, your baby can and wants to communicate with you!

In order to imagine how to communicate with a baby, let's look at the main stages of speech formation.

The first stage is screaming

When a baby is born, coming from one environment to another, he needs to somehow declare himself, his presence in this world. While the child was in the mother's belly, all his needs were satisfied instantly. Now he sometimes feels some kind of discomfort - and screams (still at the level of an unconditioned reflex). When the baby's needs are met, the child develops a certain behavioral stereotype, and the cry becomes a signal of discomfort (wet, wants to eat or sleep, sad, lonely). The child has only one remedy - screaming. Gradually, with the help of a cry, the baby learns not only to attract attention to himself, but also to communicate. Remember, when your baby calls you, he first screams and then waits for an answer: will mommy come or not? Then he screams louder and waits again. In this way, the child gives his “interlocutor” the opportunity to engage in his first dialogue.

Photo: nastyaofly / freepik.com

Around the third month (and for many babies much earlier), the intonation of screams also changes. An attentive mother can identify many different cries of her child - it could be grumbling, whining, dissatisfaction, a sharp squeal of pain, angry “exclamations”.

“Even if I’m in another room, I can almost certainly tell from the screams what’s happening to my twins. When they quarrel and cannot share toys, the cry is the same; when they are bored, the cry is completely different. And, of course, I always distinguish shrill and sharp “dangerous screams” (when you urgently need to run to help) from “non-dangerous” ones, when children simply express their dissatisfaction.”

The cry is present in the child for quite a long time, developing in parallel with speech. And even when real, “adult” words appear, screaming continues to play a very important role in communication.

Buzzing in deaf children

Studies have been conducted to determine whether infants with hearing loss can produce typical vocal sounds.

Gurgling can appear at the same age and in similar forms in a hearing and deaf child, but further development of speech depends on the child’s ability to hear himself. For this reason, deaf children stop verbally babbling earlier than hearing children.

Children begin to babble if exposed to language, but vocal babbling may be delayed or absent altogether in deaf children.

After hearing aids are installed, hearing-impaired children begin to hear speech and babble, just like healthy babies do.

Deaf children are not only significantly behind in spoken language development compared to their hearing peers, but they also produce fewer noises. This suggests that auditory experience is essential for the development of spoken language.

Second stage - humming

Buzzing usually occurs at the age of one to two months and accompanies the child in the first six months of life. Usually these are different variations of sounds: a-a-gu, gee-s, ge-e, a-gy, etc. It is curious that babies of different nations walk in the same way. Gradually, the baby’s repertoire is enriched with new sounds, and new intonations appear. In humming, as in shouting, the moment of interaction is also important. Of course, the baby can go for a walk even when left alone in the room. But with your appearance, the partying becomes more active. If you look closely at the child, you will see that he does not just make sounds. At this time, the baby looks into your eyes, waits for your answer, he is already trying to build a full-fledged speech dialogue. And this dialogue must be supported! After all, while walking, the child learns to coordinate both his voice and his gaze, which will subsequently become the basis of any social contact.

The baby seeks your attention and communication using the method of carrot and stick, as ancient as the world, only instead of a stick he uses crying, and instead of a carrot - his charming and joyful smile.

Photo: mimagephotography / freepik.com

Answer your child in his language, support and encourage his first “performances” in every possible way. He will be very pleased with your attention - look how he reaches out to you, tries to purse his lips in order to adequately answer such an important interlocutor! Gradually, the child begins to pronounce long chains of sounds, as if imitating himself. Moreover, he is trying to imitate you too!

A baby at this age is trying to feel sounds and words for the first time. For now, what is important for him is not so much the meaning of words, but rather the different intonations, the rhythm of speech, and the articulation of various sounds.

“My daughter, at the age of four months, began to feel my lips with her hands whenever I said something to her. It seems that she wants to check how different sounds are made, and is trying to catch the words flying out, contrary to the well-known proverb about the word and the sparrow. As soon as there is a pause in my speeches, the baby immediately begins to actively answer me.”

What to do if the child does not coo

It happens that the baby suddenly stops gurgling. Don't worry. The reasons for this may be not feeling well or the need to take a time out to absorb new information.

If a baby is not cooing at 2 months, give him time. The development of children, including the development of speech, does not occur according to a schedule, but for each in its own way, often spasmodically, with pauses and even small rollbacks. An alarmed mother should not frantically search for an answer to the question: “At how many months does a child begin to coo?”, but rather help the baby a little.

And here's how:

knead your baby’s palms very gently and affectionately to stimulate those areas of the brain that are responsible for speech function;
talk to him, voice all your actions, answer him, add new sounds, in a word, communicate.

In this way, you can help the baby begin to speak and say the first “aha.”

Third stage - babbling

As the child develops, the humming subsides and is replaced by babbling. This usually occurs at the age of 6-7 months. Your baby begins to pronounce individual syllables “ba”, “ma”, “ta”, etc. - at first once, very rarely and as if by accident. Gradually, syllables are heard in his speech more and more often, they are repeated in the form of chains: ba-ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma-ma.

Booming and babbling are very important for the further development of speech. If your baby doesn’t have them, try to activate them.

Photo: dusanpetkovic / freepik.com

Holding the baby in your arms so that he can clearly see the movement of your lips, repeat various syllables, sing rhythmic songs, read simple rhymes, and most importantly, talk to the baby as much as possible. He needs to hear adult speech. However, these should not just be conversations that adults have with each other, but speech addressed specifically to him, to the child.

“My son is now 6 months old. He distinguishes different voices by ear. If I talk to him, hiding behind the diaper, he starts smiling joyfully and looking for where his mother has gone. And one day he heard the voice of someone else’s uncle from the hallway - it was a thick bass voice, completely different from his father’s voice - he heard it and began to cry loudly.”

“My ten-month-old Dashunya loves to “read” books - most of all traditional Russian fairy tales for little ones, “Kolobok”, “Turnip”, “Ryaba Hen”. She also really likes conversations on the topic: who talks how. The variations are endless – from a pussy to a big-ass truck or a steam locomotive.”

Again, even if it seems to you that the child is babbling to himself, nevertheless he is very eager to communicate with you. The first babbling words-syllables do not yet carry any meaningful meaning. But it is thanks to the mother, who hears the words in these syllables, that the babbling is filled with meaning.

“Surprisingly, Fedya began to speak the syllables “ma-ma” from the first days. Of course, at first he cried so much. But gradually, he realized that his “mama” especially touches me, especially since everyone said around him that he was calling his mother.

By six months, this “mama” began to mean not “come to me,” but “give me MOMMY here.” At eight months old, he clearly addressed me, and called me while in the arms of others, and there was no doubt that this was already a real word.”

What does Dr. E. Komarovsky think about this?

We also recommend watching another video about at what age, as a rule, babies begin to coo:

The baby's humming and cooing are rapidly changing stages of development. To prevent these processes from becoming a disappointment for mothers and fathers, it is necessary to prepare from birth, wait for the baby’s first sounds and prepare the child for this. Simple exercises will push the baby to the first walk and “aha”. But the most important thing is to maintain emotional calm within the family and give the baby all the love and tenderness.

Lesson or communication?

Of course, when communicating with a child, we teach him one way or another. But try not to let your desire to teach your baby literally from the cradle overshadow a more important thing - your live emotional communication.

Photo: ShevtsovaYuliya / freepik.com

If you follow the theories of early development, you probably heard the name of the American scientist Glen Doman, who argued that, being in a special learning environment from a very early age, a child can achieve very high intellectual results. At his Institute of Child Development, Doman conducted many experiments, the essence of which boiled down to the following. Beginning at two months of age, when their eyes begin to focus, infants were rapidly shown various cards depicting letters, words, notes, numbers, pictures, hieroglyphs and much, much more. During the demonstration, the teacher or mother named the corresponding object. At first, such “lessons” lasted 5-10 minutes, then their duration gradually increased.

When the kids grew up, this is what became clear. They really remembered information perfectly, spoke foreign languages, read, counted, etc. But at the same time, the kids did not play at all; their emotional sphere was disturbed. Accustomed to only passively absorbing didactic material, they did not strive for active knowledge of the world around them; creativity was inaccessible to them, since they had no real creative experience. And they could not always put into practice that huge store of knowledge that their tenacious childhood memory stored. The saddest thing is that the emotional disturbances in these children were already irreparable. After all, many very important milestones of emotional development are laid precisely in infancy, when the child wants and can communicate, build social models of behavior, and not record countless dry facts in his brain.

In my psychological practice there was a boy, Andryusha, who could not adequately communicate with his peers. He ran in circles, constantly repeating the same phrase. At the same time, he had very big problems with the articulation of sounds: at the age of five he simply could not pronounce about fourteen sounds, so it was difficult to understand him. He preferred to communicate in writing.

It turned out that Andryushin’s mother was at one time very interested in the early intellectual development of her son. As a result, he learned to read before he spoke. At the same time, he did not play, studying numbers, letters, special cards, and only drew geographical maps.

When starting to teach your child letters in infancy using a newfangled developmental method, be careful! Some children who were taught to read, for example, using Zaitsev's cubes before they began to speak, had delayed speech development. Instead of engaging in live communication, they read and wrote using blocks.

Delayed speech development: how to help your child speak

Delayed speech development is one of the most pressing problems in pediatric neurology today, which, unfortunately, also affects absolutely healthy children. Often the parents themselves are the cause of a child’s speech difficulties. The chief pediatric neurologist of the Ministry of Health of the Tver Region, Galina Anatolyevna Zueva, tells what to do and what should not be done under any circumstances so that the child speaks correctly and on time.

Hello, dear parents!

Today our conversation is devoted to a very important and pressing problem - the speech development of children. In the last few years, we have increasingly heard that a child who is not speaking at 2.5-3 years old is a variant of the norm, that there is nothing wrong with this, you just need to wait a little, and speech will appear. In fact, this approach is fundamentally wrong. There are physiological norms for proper speech and mental development, and it is very important to monitor their compliance from the very birth of the child. Only in this case will he be able to develop harmoniously and fully.

The main stages of child speech development

You can start developing your baby’s speech from the first day of his birth.

The first thing you need to pay attention to is how the baby cries. A baby’s cry from birth is very different, it becomes especially expressive in the first month of life, from it you can understand what the baby needs: he is cold, he is in pain, he wants to eat or go to the toilet, or maybe he just wants his mother to hold him in his arms. . If the child does everything correctly intonationally, then an attentive mother quickly learns to understand the difference and respond to these “requests.” In this case, mental and then speech development occurs harmoniously. If your child cries monotonously, at the same level, and does not respond well to the voice, consult a doctor.

If the child is healthy and has no hearing problems, then in response to positive emotions in the second month of life he begins to “walk.” Along with the “humming”, the first laughter appears - squealing in response to emotional communication with an adult. The sounds of “humming” are already distinguished by a certain variety with a predominance of combinations of guttural and vowel sounds (“gu”, “ge”, “ha”, etc.) With these sounds he tries to communicate, reacts to what is happening around him. If the baby does not start to “walk”, consult a doctor; perhaps he has a problem with his ears.

At two months, the period of onomatopoeia begins: the baby carefully follows his mother’s lips when she talks to him, and seems to be trying to repeat these movements, but so far silently. So, by 3.5-4 months, a true “humbling” is formed, where the child focuses on the pronounced sound, syllable, as if listening to himself. During the period of true “humming,” the sounds become longer, melodious, and more varied. Along with laryngeal and vowel sounds, labial sounds and combinations of vowels and labials are increasingly appearing.

By six months, the child develops babbling speech - he begins to pronounce some individual letters and syllables. During this period, it is important to monitor intonations - how he speaks, how he cries. At six months, a healthy child should already be chatting, pronouncing certain syllables, and repeating specific sounds after his mother. During the period of babbling, imitation of the sounds of an adult becomes more distinct.

By the end of the pre-speech period, the child’s nonverbal forms of communication with others become more complex. Communication is carried out using both hands, more differentiated facial expressions and sounds. The child reaches out his hands to his mother, utters separate sounds, as if asking “take me.” Then facial expressions become more complex. She becomes more expressive, symbolic gestures appear. The child can communicate using one hand. Babbling words of various intonations appear.

By the age of one year, a child should speak from 8 to 10 simple words: “mom”, “dad”, “baba”, “give”, “na”, that is, short simple words of several syllables. It is during this period that early speech development ends and motor speech begins to form as a way of communication between people.

After one and a half years, a child easily pronounces familiar and unfamiliar words by imitation, both addressed to him and accidentally heard from others. Intensive development of motor speech usually begins in the second half of the 2nd year of life. Until one year and six months, a child pronounces about 30 words with simple sound composition. At two years old, a child already speaks more than 200 words, he has almost phrasal speech, he should already be able to formulate a simple thought or request: “Mom, let’s go to the store, you promised to buy me a toy.” However, he may still pronounce some sounds unclearly. By the age of three, a child’s speech contains up to 1200-1500 words, including almost all parts of speech.

This development is considered normal. But this happens only when the parents constantly talk to the child, tell him fairy tales, and sing lullabies. A very big problem today is that live speech is increasingly being replaced by gadgets. Because of this, many children who were initially born healthy from a neurological point of view do not begin to speak in time.

If a healthy child at 2.5-3 years old does not speak phrasal speech at all and, at best, only speaks a few simple words, he has a delay in speech development, and this, unfortunately, must be treated.

Speech develops gradually

It takes time for a child to learn to speak correctly and construct logical, figurative phrases. When a child is just learning to walk, he takes his first hesitant steps with his mother’s help, and after six months to a year he is already running, jumping and dancing on his own. The same thing happens with speech: it develops gradually. The child not only remembers new words, but also at the same time trains articulatory muscles and learns to control intonation. This takes more than one year. Therefore, if at 3-3.5 years old your child is just beginning to pronounce the first words and construct the simplest phrases like “Mom, give me”, then by the age of six, when it’s time to go to school, he will not have developed full-fledged phrasal speech. It is important to develop speech gradually, but from a very early age.

Causes of delayed speech development

The first and most basic reason is brain damage due to ischemia, hemorrhage, and infection. But such deviations are immediately diagnosed, doctors monitor the child and take all necessary measures. These are the patients with whom a neurologist, psychologist and speech therapist are already working.

But there is a category of patients who are born absolutely healthy. But due to errors in learning, they also begin to experience delays in speech development. Most often, the reason is parents’ excessive fascination with mechanical sound, that is, sound from a TV, computer, tablet, phone. Children who watch a lot of cartoons or constantly play with singing-talking toys develop passive speech well, but their own active speech is not formed. This occurs due to the difference in wavelength between live speech and mechanical speech. In order for a child to start talking, you need to talk to him as much as possible, read fairy tales yourself, and sing lullabies.

Under no circumstances should a TV or radio be allowed to work in the background in the room where the baby spends time. Of course, if you want to show your child some cartoon or program on the computer, this can and should be done, but after watching the device you need to turn it off and put it away.

Of course, all these devices and toys allow mom to relax a little or do some of her own business. But when they replace live communication, this leads to serious problems with the child’s psyche. It’s better to prevent such things from happening than to have to spend years catching up. To restore the correct speech pattern in a three-year-old child, to change his perception, a lot of effort and time is required: the child cannot quickly catch up with such gaps, he has to resort to intensive drug treatment, and additional classes with speech therapists. This is a long and difficult path. Why bring it to this point if you can do everything right from the very beginning?

Why you need to sing lullabies

Singing lullabies is an important part of raising a child. The most famous lullabies, for example, “bayu-bayushki-bayu,” were invented back in the 5th-6th centuries, and it is no coincidence that we still sing them to children. They are built specifically in the timbre and wavelength fluctuations that are understandable to the child, calm him, and develop the brain. Each age has its own songs that need to be sung. Humming such lullabies to a small child and simultaneously rocking him in your arms creates the basis for proper mental development.

Nowadays, many couples approach pregnancy planning with full responsibility: they lead a healthy lifestyle, undergo all tests, read books about the health and raising of the unborn child. Include in this preparation and learning at least a few lullabies to sing to your baby. No matter how simple they may seem to you, they contain folk wisdom that has been proven over centuries for the correct development of personality, this is very important. Sing these lullabies for at least a year.

By the age of two, when the child already understands phrasal speech well, songs can be selected that are more plot-based, so that while the mother sings, he can imagine this picture in his head.

Talk to your child as much as possible

Don’t rush into conversations with your baby, calmly and measuredly tell him what’s happening around him, voice your actions. Then he will begin to perceive by ear the name of this or that object, and this is how passive speech is formed. From six months onwards, add details about the color and volume of objects: “small toy”, “red ball”. When you do this constantly, the child learns to hear and understand you.

This helps to explain to the baby after a year that panties should be dry, that is, it is quite early to potty train the child, and not use diapers all the time. At one and a half years old, the child is able to hold the bladder and control his pelvic functions. This is one of the important links in mental development. Of course, he will eventually learn to ask to go to the toilet himself, but these skills will come much later and not in the form in which he would like.

Therefore, it is very important to accustom yourself to talk to your baby as much as possible and limit mechanical sounds around him as much as possible - these are the most important parts of preventing speech development delays. If we build this correctly, then at the age of 2.5 years the child begins to speak in phrasal speech, and parents have no problems with his behavior or learning. If your child at 2.5 years old does not speak, especially if there is no so-called gibberish speech, he is silent and does not voice the game, a request addressed to you for something, then this is not a variant of the norm, this is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

How to talk to a child

You need to talk to your child in a normal timbre; it is your tone and timbre that the child knows from his prenatal state.
Try to speak in simple phrases, but do not lisp or distort words.
If a child has a problem with vision or hearing, then the mother needs to start brightly painting her lips as early as possible so that he can watch her lips and understand exactly how she pronounces sounds.
If a child had problems with swallowing in the first year of life, then, unfortunately, problems with sound pronunciation cannot be avoided. You can start working with a special speech therapist already in the first months of the baby’s life, even in the pre-speech period.
Solve all problems as soon as they appear, do not put it off and do not wait for it to go away on its own. It won't work.

Is it a speech therapy garden or a regular one?

So, the child has grown up, and it’s time to decide which preschool institution to take him to. At this moment, it is important to figure out whether your baby has mental and speech problems, and what they are.

When the baby does not have any serious medical problems, start with a regular kindergarten. If in the first year your speech does not level out and develop to the required level, then you should apply for a medical-pedagogical commission. It runs from February to June. You can get a referral from a preschool or call them and make an appointment. To pass the medical-pedagogical commission, you must have a conclusion from a neurologist, speech therapist, or psychiatrist about the state of your child’s health.

If a child begins to speak in phrases, but does not pronounce certain sounds, then you can take him to a regular kindergarten that has speech therapy groups. There they work with children with normal psycho-speech development, but with incorrect settings for the sounds themselves. Typically, a speech therapist begins working with such children at the age of five in order to improve their speech and correct all weak sounds before school. On average, it takes three months to set and consolidate one sound.

One of the common disorders in children 3-3.5 years old is the so-called porridge in the mouth, when, due to a violation of the innervation of the speech muscles, the child cannot pronounce some sounds clearly and clearly. In this case, you cannot do without the help of a specialist; it is better to contact a neurologist to determine the exact cause of dysarthria and carry out the necessary treatment, if necessary; you also need to visit a special speech therapy garden. This requires an integrated approach: simultaneous coordinated work of a speech therapist, neurologist and psychologist.

The distribution of children into specialized groups or kindergartens is carried out by a medical-pedagogical commission.

And again, I repeat, it is much easier to prevent speech development delays, so that those children who could speak, but did not start due to lack of parental attention, do not end up in special groups. To do this, it is important not just to talk with the child, but to hear what he is talking about, try to understand him and respond to his words. I assure you, if you establish this contact from childhood, it will last a lifetime and will help your child become a good member of the family, society, reliable support and support for you.

How to prevent stuttering

There are times when a child does not begin to speak for a long time, but at the same time they work with him, he accumulates a large passive vocabulary, and can compose phrases in his head. If you start his speech process too actively, he will not be able to cope with the flow of speech and will begin to stutter. Most often this happens at 2.5-3 years. Children with tics (obsessive blinking, blinking, sniffing, etc.) are especially susceptible to stuttering. If you notice that the child begins to stammer at the beginning of speech, this is a signal that you need to contact a neurologist to solve the problem. Of all obsessive disorders, stuttering is the most difficult problem, which can take years to treat.

The pacifier and the child's speech development

Another important aspect of preventing speech delay is prolonged use of pacifiers and prolonged breastfeeding. I mean the situation when a pacifier or mother’s breast is in the child’s mouth not for soothing or feeding, but just like that, in a state of wakefulness. In this case, the problem arises purely mechanical: in order to speak, the mouth must be free, but if the mouth is busy, then it is impossible to speak - the nipple or breast is in the way.

The pacifier can be used when the child falls asleep, when he is sick, or when he hits himself, but it must be removed while he is awake. After two years, the pacifier should be completely abandoned. This will help avoid speech problems and maintain proper bite, which will significantly reduce your financial costs in the future when an orthodontist treats your beloved child’s unsightly teeth.

The same applies to the mother's breast. It should be a source of food or a means of calm, nothing more. Of course, breast milk contains a lot of good substances, but it is needed only until the child begins to eat normal human food. Breast sucking is very important for the formation of psychological communication between mother and child. But by the age of two, the child already understands spoken speech well and can speak himself, so this connection only strengthens and will not be interrupted in any way after the child is weaned.

It is important to wean your baby from thumb sucking from the very beginning. By the age of 2.5-3 years, the child should be comfortable without a pacifier, mother's breast, or thumb sucking. Why? During sucking, rocking-forward movements give a feeling of calm and sedation. With age, the child’s need for such movements weakens; now he needs to explore the world around him and be active. And if a child continues to suck a finger or a pacifier, then he automatically transfers himself to the infant period, behaves like a baby and does not give himself the opportunity to fully develop.

Gadgets: harm or benefit

Modern devices, on the one hand, are very useful, but when it comes to children, you need to be extremely attentive and careful. Nobody says that you shouldn’t use TV and gadgets at all. This is an important part of modern life, children should be able to master them. But a small child does not yet have the skills of speech, movements, motor skills, proper mental development, criticism, self-criticism, and the ability to control oneself are incorrectly formed. Therefore, it is very dangerous to uncontrollably give him something that can provoke abnormal development.

In Russia, little is said about this, and today in most families gadgets are used beyond the permissible limit; for each family member, including an infant, there are from two to three gadgets. At the same time, in the same high-tech Japan, children are allowed to use a telephone or computer only from the age of five, when the nervous system has matured. And I agree with their approach. Yes, you can turn on some educational games or cartoons for your child, but no more than 30-40 minutes a day on a good screen with good sound. It is better to avoid tablets and smartphones, because young children quickly develop color and tactile addiction.

Into the wilderness, into the village

Finally, I would like to advise all parents to spend more time with their children outdoors. This will be especially useful for children who have problems with psycho-speech development. The best thing is to go to the countryside for several weeks or even months, where there are only living sounds of nature from a running stream, the rustling of leaves on trees, the buzzing of a bee and other sounds, where there is no urban, mechanical sound from the hum of wires. This will not only help normalize sleep and give peace of mind, but will also give the child’s brain overloaded with information the opportunity to rest and gain strength to overcome all difficulties in speech development.

Be healthy! Good luck to you and your children!

Stage four - first words

So, from babbling a word is born...

At this stage (usually it begins at 11-12 months) it is very important to help the child with his word creation. It is now that the baby begins to associate words with objects in the environment, words are filled with meaning for him. Now you can expand your reading aloud repertoire. Try to call things around you by their proper names (not “Let’s put this thing in there”, but “Let’s put the doll in the crib”). Don't forget to comment on your actions when you are with your baby.

Speech therapists advise training the muscles of the lips and cheeks. To do this, stock up on various whistles, harmonicas, and a toy flute and teach your child how to blow on these instruments. It is also useful to blow soap bubbles (although you will have to constantly make sure that the child does not drink the soap solution).

Another fun way to exercise your lip and cheek muscles is to make faces with your baby. Feel free to make funny faces, expressively depict a variety of emotions (surprise, fear, joy), stick out your tongue, lick your lips. You will see that your baby will really like this new game, and soon he will begin to repeat some movements after you.

Children usually really like sounding toys. Take advantage of this and let your baby learn to make a variety of sounds and reproduce them with his voice. His first words will be onomatopoeic: “bang”, “boom”, “woof-woof”, “bibika”. Don’t be afraid of these infantile, “Lala” (as my eldest daughter says) words. This is a very important moment in speech development. It is still difficult for a child to associate an abstract word (for example, dog, car, fell) with a specific object or action. If the word is at least somewhat similar to an object or action, such a connection will be much easier to establish (for example, a dog says “av-av”, a car says “beep”, and a falling object makes “boom”). Infant words help the child transition to normal, “adult” speech.

When your baby tries to repeat some words after you, you can read the poems “by role.” For example, the famous poem about desperate geese (everyone, as a rule, remembers its beginning):

Adult: Geese, geese!
Child: Ha-ha-ha!
Adult: Do you want something to eat?
Child: Yes, yes, yes!
Adult: Bread and butter?
Child: No, no, no.
Adult: What do you want?
Child: Candy!
Adult: Well, fly as you want, just take care of your wings - the gray wolf under the mountain won’t let you go home. They flew and flew (the child waves his arms) and sat on his head.

When you read well-known poems or sing songs to your baby, pause at the end of the line so that the child can finish the line himself.

It is especially important to talk to your baby while playing. Do not forget that the game is focused specifically on dialogue, and not on your monologue. You can, for example, roll a ball to each other, accompanying this activity with comments: “Give me the ball! The ball rolled towards mom.” Pause and give your child the opportunity to join the conversation. “And now - on the ball! The ball rolled towards the baby,” etc. Try to match the game to your baby’s mood and state.

Classification of hearing loss

I degree:
usually the child hears well, but problems begin when he finds himself in a noisy acoustic situation.
Stage II:
There are problems with whispered speech, even if it is heard in a quiet environment.
Grade III:
The child has serious problems understanding speech, even if it is quite loud.
IV degree:
the baby hears only what sounds very close to his ear.

The only thing worse than fourth degree hearing loss is complete deafness.

Please note: hearing loss is not a temporary quantitative decrease in the ability to perceive sounds, but qualitative irreversible changes in the entire auditory system, which will inevitably have an impact on the development of the child’s psyche. The role of hearing in human development is very great.

Words and gestures

Facial expressions, gestures, and intonation help a person communicate with other people. Please note that adults, when talking to each other, convey a lot of information using facial expressions and gestures (this is why many people find it difficult to communicate on the phone, although they can easily carry on a conversation during a personal meeting). But for young children, non-verbal communication is even more important because at a certain stage it is the only way for them to “talk” to you.

Photo: tatyanadobrikova / freepik.com

It is very useful to reinforce words with certain gestures. First, the baby learns to reproduce the gesture, and then repeats the word. For example, the word “give!” usually accompanied by the following gesture: extend your hand with your palm up and bend and straighten your fingers several times. At the same time, try to use the words “give”, “bring”, “take” more often, ask the child to fulfill simple requests. You will see that he will be very happy to help you!

In a similar way, you can teach your baby other expressive gestures, for example, “Okay”, “Goodbye”, “Show how big (or big) you are”, shake your head affirmatively or negatively. Don’t be shy about children’s gestures, such as pointing with your finger, but rather, help your child master them.

Gestures can also have an emotional connotation.

“Olezhka recently learned to show how sour a tomato is and how sweet a raspberry is. When you ask him: “Which tomato?”, he wrinkles his nose hilariously, showing his disgust for his least favorite food. To the question: “What kind of raspberry?” the child breaks into a blissful smile and smacks his tongue. Of course, at some point we taught him this, but now he often imitates some kind of taste even without our asking. For example, if you say that lemon is sour, Olezhka will certainly frown.”

“Marusa was shown that you can smell flowers. Now, at the sight of any flower (in a flowerbed, in a pot, or even in a book), she reaches out to it with her nose and sniffs it in ecstasy.”

The child can use gestures to accompany your reading of poetry or singing.

For example, like this:

I play the violin - tili-li, tili-li, (the baby holds an imaginary violin in his hands and “plays” it),
The bunnies are dancing on the lawn - tili-li and tili-li (“dancing”, twirling their raised arms).
And then on the drum - bam-bam-bam, bam-bam-bam (the child taps his palms on some surface),
In fear, the bunnies ran into the bushes! (hides his face in his hands).

Or like this:

A clubfooted bear is walking through the forest (the child is swaying, legs spread wide),
He collects cones and sings songs (bends over an imaginary cone).
Suddenly a cone fell right on the bear’s forehead (slaps himself on the forehead).
The bear got angry and stomped his foot (the baby stomps his foot).

Or like this:

Little bunny, dance, little gray one, dance. Dance like this, dance like this, dance like this (the child “dances”).
Little bunny, stomp your foot, little gray one, stomp your foot, stomp your foot like this and that, stomp your foot like this (stomps first with one foot and then with the other).
Little bunny, clap your hands, little gray one, clap your hands, clap your hands like this, clap your hands like this (baby claps your hands).
Bunny, bow, little gray one, bow, bow like this, bow like this (bows).

You can also play “Toys” by Agnia Barto. The kid shows how the bull swings on a shaky board, how the girl Tanya cries bitterly, pities and strokes the poor bear with a torn paw.

By the way, the famous finger games simultaneously train the child’s “speaking gestures” and fine motor skills, which are also very useful for speech development.

Here, for example, is the game “Cabbage”:

We have cabbage, here it is, cabbage (we show how big cabbage is),
We cut the cabbage, cut it (with the edge of our palm, like a knife, we knock on the table),
We three, three, cabbage (rubbing our palms),
we mash the cabbage, mash it (we pretend to mash the cabbage with our fists).

And here is a finger massage game similar to the famous “Soroka-Soroka” - Pancake Machines:

Masha began to call guests (we stroke the baby’s open palm):
And Ivan, come, and Stepan, come, and Andrey, come, and Sergey, come, (we bend our fingers one by one, starting with the thumb),
And Nikitushka - well, please! (we bend the little finger after stroking it).
Masha began to treat the guests: pancake to Ivan, and pancake to Stepan, and pancake to Andrey, and pancake to Sergei (we straighten our fingers, kneading the pads - “we hand out pancakes”),
and Nikitushka - mint gingerbread! (extend the little finger, also stroking it first).
Masha began to see off the guests: Ivan, goodbye, and Stepan, goodbye, Andrey, goodbye, and Sergei, goodbye! (each finger bends and straightens in turn - as in the “goodbye” gesture),
and Nikitushka - well, stay a little longer! (we stroke the little finger affectionately).

These games will help your child enrich their vocabulary and relate words to very specific actions or objects.

How can a baby sit at the age of 9 months?

Each child is individual in his habits. Some children prefer one way of sitting, others often change it, using all the options available to them:

Sitting in a ring

The so-called sitting ring pose is the previous stage of the long seat. In this pose, the legs are slightly bent, the knees point outward, and the feet are facing each other. The lumbar spine still has a rounded shape. But now both baby’s hands are free!

mature long sitting

A mature long seat should be symmetrical, that is, the child should find his center and distribute his weight evenly. In this position, the baby should have straight legs, kneecaps pointing upward, and the spine also straightened. If your child puts more weight on one buttock than the other, help him find his center by applying gentle pressure to the raised leg.

Hands-free side sit-down

In the side-sit position, the child no longer needs to lean on one hand, as he did a few weeks ago, and both hands are finally free to play.

Children with asymmetry have difficulty using side sitting on both sides and prefer only one side. Important! A doctor should look for the cause of this phenomenon.

Sitting on your heels

The child sits on his heels when crawling towards an object and transfers weight to his legs to pull himself up. Then he sits vertically on his knees, butt over heels.

If a child spreads his legs and sits down between his heels, this may indicate a problem if this happens too often. If your child has difficulty in other sitting positions, the doctor should check the hip joints for mobility.

Combining different sitting positions gives the child greater safety. Using a long seat, the child changes and relaxes the buttocks, which are loaded during an oblique sitting down. Symmetrical and asymmetrical poses alternate. From an oblique sitting position, the child moves to a position on all fours, and then begins to crawl.

About over-salted porridge

Remember the famous joke about the boy who didn’t say anything until he was five years old? No medical luminaries and the most famous speech therapists could help him. But one day at breakfast the boy suddenly said: “The porridge is too salty today!” The happy parents rushed to congratulate each other, and when they calmed down, they asked their offspring: “Why were you silent before?” To this the boy replied: “And before everything was fine.”

Jokes aside, when parents understand a child too well without words, he simply does not need to convey any message to them. Perhaps here you sometimes have to be a little cunning, pretending that you do not understand what the child wants from you until he tries to tell you about it.

Until she was two years old, Alina said nothing but “yes” and “no.” I was already starting to worry about this, and suddenly I caught myself formulating all the questions to her in such a way that they could be answered unequivocally “yes” or “no.” When I began to ask more complex questions, as if not understanding my daughter, she came up with many more new words.

If a child communicates with you using babble and gestures, his first words are about to appear. Don't worry if this happens a little later than you think it should. Don't compare your baby to the girl next door, your friend's son, or your coworker's niece! The development of each individual child may have its own individual characteristics.

However, there are some important milestones in your baby's speech development that are worth paying special attention to:

A cry that is initially a reaction to discomfort (hunger). A child who is too quiet and as comfortable as possible is not as good as it seems.
Animation complex (smile, animation) when an adult appears (appears at 1-3 months).
Booming. How and when does your baby roar? Does he look into your eyes at the same time, does he “sing” his baby songs while in your arms, do you feel his need for communication?
Babbling (appears at 6-10 months), the child clearly attracts attention to himself with the help of some sounds.
Pointing gesture (appears at 8-13 months). This is a very important moment in the development of a child, preceding the appearance of the first words, because before naming an object, the baby needs to learn how to show it.
Emergence of basic social gestures, such as “goodbye” (9–12 months).
Understanding and fulfilling simple requests, the appearance of elementary plot games (feed the doll). A child usually goes through this stage at about one year of age.

Inessa Smyk, Daria Golubeva

Based on materials from the magazine “Aistenok”, 03.04

When does a child start to coo and gurgle?

Booming and croaking appears soon after birth and progresses through several stages. A newborn baby speaks only by screaming. Then, by the month, the repertoire of sounds in children expands, and vocalization becomes more speechlike. Babies usually begin to say recognizable words when they are about 12 months old, although the humming may continue for some time afterward.

Booming and cooing can be seen as a precursor to language development, or simply as vocal experimentation. These first forms of sound production are the easiest for children because they contain natural, reflexive, mostly vowel sounds.

It is assumed that cooing occurs in all children acquiring language. Babies around the world follow general trends in humming and cooing. The differences that exist are a consequence of children's sensitivity to the characteristics of the language they constantly hear. Infants imitate the features of this language (intonation, tone, stress). The baby gurgles using the consonants and vowels that are most common in their parent language.

Babbling consists of a few sounds. This means that the baby is preparing to pronounce the basic sounds necessary to speak the language that he constantly hears.

If a child's cooing occurs in the first year, we can come to the conclusion that his speech is developing normally. As the baby grows and changes, the pronunciation of sounds also changes.

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Changes in fetal activity

Changes in fetal activity may be associated with external influences. For example, if a pregnant woman lies on her back for a long time, then the enlarged uterus compresses a large vessel - the inferior vena cava, and the flow of blood to the fetus is disrupted, which immediately causes its violent reaction - active movements. The same changes in the baby's activity can occur in any other uncomfortable position of the mother - if she leans forward, squeezing her stomach, or sits with her legs crossed, the child, with her activity, forces the mother to change her position. A similar situation arises if the baby himself squeezes or presses the loops of the umbilical cord, limiting the flow of blood through it. He begins to move more actively, changes his position and relieves pressure on the umbilical cord. However, in some cases, an increase or, conversely, a decrease in fetal movements can be a sign of a serious pathology.

If after 28 weeks of pregnancy the baby does not make itself known for 3-4 hours, perhaps he is just sleeping. In this case, the expectant mother needs to eat something sweet and lie on her left side for half an hour. If these simple manipulations do not lead to results, you should repeat them again after 2-3 hours. If this time the baby does not make itself known, this is a reason to consult a doctor. Rare and weak movements may also indicate unwellness of the fetus, most often a lack of oxygen for the baby, that is, fetal hypoxia.

Determination of fetal condition

To determine the condition of the fetus, the doctor conducts a number of examinations:

Auscultation (listening)

The simplest thing is auscultation (listening) using a special wooden tube (obstetric stethoscope) or a special device that detects the fetal heartbeat; the doctor listens to the baby’s heartbeat. Normally it is about 120-160 beats per minute. A decrease in heart rate of less than 120 or an increase of more than 160 indicates intrauterine suffering in the child.

Ultrasound examination and Doppler testing

When performing an ultrasound, the doctor visually assesses the size of the fetus, the correspondence of fetal development to the gestational age, because with oxygen starvation the growth rate of the fetus slows down and its size lags behind the norm for each stage of pregnancy. The structure of the placenta and the presence of signs of aging in it also matter, as a result of which the function of transferring blood, oxygen and nutrients to the fetus usually deteriorates. During an ultrasound, the amount and type of amniotic fluid is assessed, which can also change with intrauterine fetal suffering. Doppler ultrasound of the blood vessels of the placenta and umbilical cord is a method for studying the speed of blood flow in these vessels. When the speed of blood flow in any vessel decreases, we can talk about fetal nutritional disorders of varying degrees of severity.

Cardiotocography (CTG)

This is an important method for assessing the condition of the fetus. CTG is performed during pregnancy of 33 weeks or more, since only in this period of intrauterine development of the baby is full regulation of the activity of the fetal cardiovascular system established by the centers of the spinal cord and brain. The fetal heartbeat is recorded for at least 40 minutes, and if necessary, the study can be extended to one and a half hours. The device detects and records the baby's heart rate. For example, when the oxygen concentration in the fetal blood decreases, the supply of oxygen to the cells of the nervous system decreases, which in turn affects the heart rate, especially when the child is awake. The obstetrician-gynecologist evaluates the heartbeat recording curve, episodes of decrease and sharp increase in the fetal heart rate and, based on these data, makes a conclusion about how comfortable the baby feels in the mother’s stomach.

If, during additional methods of assessing the condition of the fetus, initial disturbances in the supply of oxygen to the baby are detected, drug treatment is carried out aimed at increasing the access of blood and oxygen through the placenta and mandatory control examinations during the therapy. If the changes are profound and the baby experiences a severe deficiency of oxygen and nutrients, his condition suffers, an emergency delivery of such a patient is carried out.

Fetal movements are not only an indicator of its condition, it is a way for the baby to communicate with his parents. The movement of the baby in the mother's tummy is an unforgettable sensation that a woman can experience only in this short, but such a happy period of her life.