The baby's first words

The baby's first words - when appear and what skills should our child learn before this happens? How does a toddler form his first words and do they always resemble those used by adults? How is the child's communication with the environment from the first moments of life and how can we support him on the way to uttering his first words? Read the answers and tips supported by speech therapy knowledge and experience. 

Parents and grandparents wait for the little one to talk impatiently and sometimes even with fear. When should the first word appear? This usually happens towards the end of the baby's first year of life. However, it is worth remembering that the toddler is basically preparing to say the first word from birth.

First words: listening, understanding, speaking 

The first words spoken by children are directly related to the hearing experience provided by the immediate environment: family, caregivers. Acquiring a language starts with listening to and then understanding certain words. Starting from birth, the baby listens carefully to the sounds around him and begins to assign meaning to them. Within a few months, he experiences that there are single words hidden in a maze of sounds. During the first six months, your baby learns to understand certain words - such as his name, other people's names, and the names of objects.

Sucking food: training the speech apparatus 

Experiences related to eating are also important for the development of speech. The baby, suckling breast or bottle milk, works intensively from the first days of life to say the first words that everyone wants in a few months. During the suckling process, exactly the same muscles that are responsible for the articulation of the first sounds are activated. Thus, food intake serves not only to satisfy the nutritional needs, but also constitutes an early training of the speech apparatus.

From the first scream to the baby's first words

A toddler communicates with the world long before uttering his first words - from the very first moments of his life.

1. The earliest communication, and at the same time a great exercise in articulators, is scream. By screaming and crying, the toddler signals whether he is hungry or has a wet diaper. This period lasts roughly through the first three months.
2. The next stage is stabbingthat appears around the second month of life. Banging, like shouting, is used to train the child's articulation apparatus.
3. About four months old babies begin to repeat sounds of the same type. This stage is called with a playful voice.
4. Seventh month it is the transition from fasting to babbling. The child begins to repeat not only individual syllables, but also whole combinations of them. These are not words yet because they have no meaning to the child who is saying them.
5. W tthe third quarter the first year of life, the toddler enters term of expression. His babbling begins to resemble speech. During this period, the child understands much more than he can verbalize himself.

When the first words in a child?

The first words expected by the parents appear at the last of these stages, i.e. in the period of expression. Most often it is tata and/ or mammaalthough there are also others. How they will sound, and which will show up first, depends on many factors. It is influenced by the auditory patterns provided by the environment, the efficiency of the articulation organs, and above all, the child's natural ability to remember words.

How does a child form the first words?

It is worth knowing not only when the first words may appear in our child, but also what they are made of. Most of the children, forming the first words, makes use of the sounds mastered during the cooing period. During this period, the child is able to use all the oral vowels correctly: a, o, u, i, y, e. The nasal vowels, that is, ą, ę, are still missing. The consonants are pronounced correctly: p, b, p ', m, t, d, n, ń, ś, k, k' and a semivowel j. Other sounds are replaced by consonants with a similar place of articulation. Temporary pronunciation may appear k instead t (similarly g instead d). So it may happen that the toddler chooses, for example, the name of the food or something related to food as the first word, e.g. am-am. A word may appear nie or an onomatopoeic word, such as: meow (cat definition) or bars (information that something has fallen). This, of course, is not a cause for concern.

The structure of the first words is simplified. Often the first syllable of a word represents the entire word for a child. This is due to the fact that the toddler cannot yet pronounce all the sounds or consonant groups.

The first words in a child: the role of parents

It is worth remembering that parents can support their toddler with appropriate stimulation and games. The best way to help your child speak first wordsthere is a conversation. It cannot be replaced by any educational program, tablet or electronic toy. Initially, it will be a parent's monologue that describes in short messages what he is doing at the moment, what he is watching. It is important to name objects, objects, people. Talk to your baby slowly and intonately. Rhymes, songs and rhymes, which, due to their rhythmicity, easily "catch the ear" of a baby can also be helpful. Over time, the monologue will turn into a dialogue. The toddler will start responding with his language, initially very simplified. It is important that when responding to a child, parents do not repeat their toddler's specific language products. They should speak to the child correctly, without unnecessary diminution. After all, it is the child who learns to speak from the parents, not the other way around.

Źródła:

Sawa B .: Children with speech disorders, WSiP, Warsaw 1990;
Diener K .: Prevention of speech disorders. A guide for parents, guardians, teachers and doctors, Pedagogical Publishing House, Kielce 1999;
Kielar-Turska M .: Child's speech. Word and text. Krakow 1989