Three tips to help your baby acquire language skills

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Author: Linsdey Paul

Article source: http://www.articledeshboard.com/. Used with author's permission.

By the time baby reaches her first 12 months, she will be well familiar with the "listen and imitate" game. This is the pre-curser to words with meaning: sounds with many possible meanings. Baby will listen to conversations, even track each person in the room who may be talking, and often burst out with a mimiced sound or word when she thinks she has picked one up. And she might yell it out repeatedly if she is really pleased with herself. This is the important formulation and practice of sounds, prior to baby attaching meaning to the sounds to form words - and she is right on the cusp to that great leap into language, a skill that will enhance her life from here on in.

What can mums and dads do to help that move from sounds to words with meaning? Well the first thing is to continue to listen to baby, and continue to speak directly to her. Make it a priority to engage with her often, with strong eye contact, mouthing the word or name or sound. Listen to her imitation, and praise and correct her, and repeat the exercise.

Make it fun, and make sure there are lots of laughs! Assign meaning to the word - point to the sibling if it is the sibling's name, or refer to the food if you are teaching a food word. When she learns the word "car" she will yell it out repeatedly as she goes on a drive and suddenly can describe what those big things are out the window..."car", "car", "car"!

Keep your discussions to the present. Don't talk to a 12 month-old about the the trip later this afternoon, or visiting Nanna yesterday. At the very early stage things need to be concrete and relateable. This helps her make those connections between what she is seeing, or tasting, or hearing or touching and what she is saying.

Baby will learn so much from this direct interaction with you - in the early years three or four-way conversations are too confusing for the young child - so that one-on-one exchange is so important.
This one-on-one teaching process will go on for many years (even when she is a teenage) and so cements your role as parent-teacher. Talk to your baby - its the best thing you can do to prepare her for talking for the rest of her life.

Lindsey Paul is mother of four, all round  supermum. She also runs the comparison shopping site www.bargains4baby-n-mum.com