Helping a toddler talk more

One tactic to use to get a toddler to talk more, is to place things he likes just out of his reach, until he asks for them by name. 

Maybe he was saying the word before then stopped for some reason. He will understand "milk" but will maybe just say " Ah Ah" and point to the bottle or the cup where the milk is. 
So you can show him the milk and say "milk" very clearly.  Then show him some juice too and say "juice".

But keep the milk and juice both out of his reach. Offer him the juice and say "Juice? You want juice?" then say " Milk? You want milk?" and keep them out of reach. 

Tell him "Say M...i..l..k."  until he tries to say "milk". If she says something  that is a better sound for milk than " Ah Ah ", maybe he'll say "ma" Mik" or "Ik" reward him by giving the milk. 

He may say 'oos" for juice and that is terrific, any move towards a better version of "juice" should be rewarded by being given the desired thing.

Your toddler likely can't say the words clearly yet, so you need to reward the effort of making sounds that are closer to the correct sounds. So " oo" is just fine at this stage.

Complete the pattern

Repeating an action and a word to create a pattern is very powerful way to help toddlers to talk more.  Humans have a strong inbuilt need to complete patterns and sequences. Use this to encourage your toddler to talk.

You say or sing a word pattern many times until you see your toddler is enjoying it and watching you closely and then start to leave off the last word and slowly begin to say it and your toddler will very likely try to say it with you.  

A simple example is waving and saying "Bye Bye".  Wave your hand and say 'Bye Bye'  " Bye Bye", stop and then repeat about 5 times, on the sixth time, just wave, don't say anything and see if your toddler will try to say " Bye Bye" to fill the silence.  Action rhymes and games that repeat the same sounds and actions are perfect for this.


Words fill the silence

You must smile while you are doing any of the following tips to feel the pleasure and not make it into a chore or a test.

Think of other things you can make your toddler 'ask' for.  For example, in the case of the milk and juice,  put only a little milk ( a few spoonfuls) or juice in the cup and when your child shows he wants more, say " More? " and pour a little more into the cup.

Repeat this around 5 times and then on the fifth time, don't say anything. Leave a moment of silence to see if your toddler will try to say " More" to complete the pattern. How long you wait, depends on your patience and your toddler's, but it's ok to just say it yourself after 4-5 seconds and try again later ( lots of times).

Put an apple on the table, let your toddler see you cut it into slices and say " Apple" , "Apple". Hold out a slice and say "Apple". Eat a bit of the apple yourself, saying "Apple" before you bite into it, but don't offer any to the toddler.  Eat another bit and say "Apple" . Hold a piece of apple out to your toddler and say nothing.  If he doesn't try to say " Apple" , you  say "Ah....." "Ah......pple". Then give him the piece of apple.

Repeat these activities several times a day and there is a good chance your toddler will start to talk more.

For more ideas of activities, rhymes and games to help a toddler up to age three years talk more Click Here

Baby Talk is Bad ?

Baby Talk is Bad for Children, but not for Babies !

The"baby' is often used to describe young children of various ages up to about 3 years. In terms of learning different skills and development it is better to be more precise, and talk about young children as:

1. "infant" - under 1 year old
2. "toddler" - 12-30  months
3. "child" - 1 and 2 above and everything else up to 16?

When people say " talk to babies like they are adults" they are correct, but under the age of 12 months, using "baby talk" in ADDITION, supplies infants with many benefits. It is not a case of  baby talk OR adult talk, but BOTH.

Infants need to hear different types of talk and each teaches babies something different about the human voice and talking.

Each type of talk could be called "baby talk"

1) Baby Talk - A way of talking to babies using a special voice- also called Motherese, Parentese, Caretaker speech,  - high pitched, lilting, sing song voice where the actual words are the same as in adult speech, but spoken in a different way.

Research has shown that babies like, enjoy and pay more attention to "parentese" than the normal fast, flat, joined-up speech adults use to talk to each other.

2) Baby talk for "practice" - repetition of sounds for the pure joy of baby discovering  his own voice and practicing how to make the individual sounds in words.

3) Baby Talk - Mirroring - where the parent repeats the same sound the baby makes to create a conversation. This video below is an excellent example of 'mirroring"

 term

This video below shows three types of talk
"Parentese" - adult words spoken with special lilting voice
Mirroring -  repeating the sounds baby makes
Entertainment - the joy of repetition

Infants (under 12 months) learn different things from each type of speech. In various cultures and many different languages, parents and family members use similar types of " baby talk" called " infant-directed speech', 'parentese" or " motherese" when they talk to their infants.

Infants Become Toddlers

The point around 12 months when a baby changes from being an infant to a toddler marks a big leap forward in language learning. At this stage first words, like mama, dada, cup, hat, cat, no,  appear and it becomes essential to say words clearly, show your toddler the shapes your mouth and lips make. It is also the time when Mirroring 'baby talk",  that copies how infants talk, should not be used with toddlers. Once they begin to actually say words, they need clear, correct speech to copy. They need "parentese" , " motherese" - normal language spoken slowly an clearly with short sentences and a musical lilt.

Before 12 months, babies speech development needs are very different from the later months and years.  Babies will learn to talk well without baby talk, it is true, but it is not BAD. It is beneficial for bonding for the adults and infants it seems perverse to withhold it in the mistaken belief  that it is doing harm before the age of one year, when in fact it is does a lot of good.

Below is a list of links to articles by professionals in the child brain, speech and language development spheres, and other sources where "baby talk" is explained and encouraged for the good effects it has.

"Beweave" it or not, baby talk helps babies learn language. Research shows that babies prefer to listen to our silly baby talk from birth.     

Baby Talk: Communicating with Your Child -- Roberta Golinkoff, PhD 

Adults may feel silly when they talk to babies, but those babies will learn to speak sooner if adults talk to them like infants instead of like other adults, according to a study by Carnegie Mellon University Psychology Professor Erik Thiessen

Carnegie Mellon Study: Adults' Baby Talk Helps Infants Learn To Speak 

For a complete program of activities stretching from birth to age 3 years, you can learn how to best use the different types of "baby talk" while you teach your baby to talk

Baby Development - Some First Words Tips

When parents or caregivers ask about baby development, and baby's first words in particular, it would be terrific to give a really simple standard answer, but that isn't possible when all babies and all parents are different.

So when people ask when a baby will say his first words, I'm tempted to say - well it depends how many words he's heard spoken to him. It's not enough to just have heard words spoken. 

The words need to have been related to the baby's needs and experiences.  It also depends what exactly we mean by words. If a baby looks at a cup and says " up", is that a word? We know he means cup, and that his mouth just isn't mature enough to say the "c" , Or early baby babbling from around 6 months is full of many "words" but we have no idea what they mean.

This Youtube video shows some baby babbling. Sounds a lot like dadadada!

So when we say "first words" it seems we mean a combination of sounds that we recognize and understand that are related to something we know. 

So here are a few tips to help baby get to the point of  babies saying " meaningful words"

1. Turn off your mobile phone
   'hearing' you talking to your friends on your mobile phone are only a tiny bit useful to a baby learning to talk.  He needs you to be focused on him and the words you are using need to be focused on an activity he or  you are doing. You need to be talking in clear short simple words and repeating the words and the actions. Talking on your mobile phone doesn't help here.
2. Turn off the TV
   often TV's are just left on in a room when no-one is watching it and the sound becomes a background for what other things are happening. As adults we have developed the great skill of being able to focus on what we want to hear and blocking out other sources of sound, so it fades into the background. Young children haven't developed the same skill and the sound from a TV can interfere with hearing all the separate sounds in the words you are speaking. So all that is heard is an even more meaningless jumble.
3. Play simple games
   Playing games is the heart of learning to talk and I use 'heart" deliberately. Joy, humour and laughter speed up learning. When a baby smiles and laughs we know his attention is focused. So the kind of games to play in the first few months that make babies smile and laugh is repeating the same action over and over along with repeated sounds and words. At least 10 minutes of every day should be spent doing action play.
4. Be aware
   When your baby is awake, try to put yourself in his place; imagine what its like to be him,  and ask yourself every two minutes, what would I be experiencing and learning?  Try doing that for a period of 30 minutes. 

If you found this post helpful, share it or leave a comment below.

Help Toddler to Talk - Activites for Toddlers

Teaching Toddlers to Talk - by doing

Teaching toddlers to talk becomes a fun and pleasant activity if you look for opportunities to DO entertaining things WITH your toddler in active play and repeat the same activities over and over. 

Choose household objects to play with as well as toys. Toddlers don't know the difference between a manufactured toy and a pot lid. Toys are just "something to play with". Ordinary every day household objects that are not sharp or too small, are safe to play with give many more chances for useful words to be learned. And make no mistake, babies will learn what is most useful or most fun to them. 

You can use pots, pans, lids, plastic bowls, empty plastic food trays and tubs , wooden spoons, metal spoons, whisks, ice cube trays.  For 'ingredients" to mix you can use cooked and cooled pasta ( shells, spaghetti, bows, tubes)  or dry rice. You can use food colouring to make it more exciting. For any other kitchen ingredients you need to make sure it can't cause choking.

While your toddler is playing with a spoon, you can say "spoon" several times. Hold the spoon in front of you and make sure baby can see the spoon and your face at the same time. Say "spoon" and wiggle the spoon about to focus the baby's attention on it. 

Do this several times. Then look straight at baby and say "spoon" very slowly and exaggerate your mouth movements "sssssss....P...ooooooo...n" . You will notice he looks in your eyes the first time you say it. Then as you repeat it slowly like that several times, his eyes will flick back between your eyes and your mouth. He may make a sound - trying to say the word. Now if he tries to say the word, regardless of any errors, this shows your toddler is learning and is producing the best sounds his skill level allows. You should give a big smile and give lots of praise. Then it is important to say the word correctly again so you are showing the best model of how to say it.

Now do some deliberate playing with the spoon.  You can put some dry rice grains in a cooking pot. Tell baby it is "rice" let him play with it with his hands, then show baby how to "stir" with the spoon, and say "Stir the rice" several times.  Start to do actions with the spoon. Say " Give mummy ( or daddy or carer name) the spoon". 


Toddlers love "Hiding " games. So you can simply put the spoon under a towel to hide it, then ask your toddler , "Where's the spoon?". He may pull the towel away to show the spoon, so you can show how pleased you are he found it. 


You can play many variations of this. Hide two things - the spoon and  a cup under two different towels and ask " Where's the spoon"? Be happy and pleased when he guesses right.  When he is wrong, shake your head  'Uh-oh, no spoon, It's the cup!". 

Making sure your toddler has somewhere in the house to play is crucial. Toddlers need a place they can do messy playing,  like painting, water play, handling messy squishy textures like pasta, paint, modelling clay and generally able to make a mess while they are learning about the world.  

If you can provide an area in your home that is dedicated as your kid's playroom or play space then you will find that they will really benefit from this. Your children will be really happy if they have their own play area and not have adults shouting at them all the time to clear up their toys or projects, especially if they don't have their own room. A playroom with washable area of floor and some storage will give them somewhere to keep their toys on a permanent basis. This means that the adults don't have to worry about tripping over things all the time and the kids have a fun room in the house. 

Most homes have an area that they just don't utilise; basements and attics are just used as storage space. These spaces can become part of the home with some conversion work. And if you choose to add heating then this is another area which can be used all year round even on cold or rainy days when boredom can peak if you have to stay indoors.

But you will find that toddlers won't play much in their own playroom, on their own. They want you to be there to play with them and teach them, and that is just as it should be. THe playroom shouldn't become a place to park the toddler and expect him to play quietly for hours on his own. It won't happen. Try to make their play area as interesting as possible with toys and everyday objects that spark their interest.  Then you have the ideal place for doing activities for teaching toddlers how to talk.

Reading To Your Child

Reading To Your Child

One of the best things you can do for your child is to read to them.  Right from the first weeks of life, every day if possible, reading to your child has huge benefits.

In the first month or two the baby will not understand any of the words you are saying but he will begin to recognise patterns in the way you read and the words will be embedded in his memory ready to be matched with a meaning in future months and years.

Reading to a young baby is very calming for a baby who keeps crying for no apparent reason. The sound of ريدينغ , especially poetry or nursery rhymes can even send a baby to sleep! It is a strategy worth trying by an exasperated parent faced with a baby who keeps on crying and you feel you've tried everything else..

As babies grow into toddlers, reading to them helps them to understand what books are and how to handle them; that they have pages, that the pages get turned, the pictures relate to the story. As your child grows one of the benefits of reading to them is that they hear words we don't often use in daily life. It's not every day you can walk down the street and point out a zebra or a camel crossing the road!

But the main point of all this reading to children is that it is great fun, a terrific bonding experience and also helps with a baby's learning to talk. The more words babies hear every day, the more words they will learn. The more words a child can say makes learning to read so much easier. And it only takes five or ten minutes a day.    

How you read to your child will depend on your child's age. The books you choose will differ too. This excellent book "Baby Read-Aloud Basics" gives really useful tips on the books to choose and how to read with your child at different ages to get the most fun and pleasure out of reading to your child.

Speech in children

Speech in Children

It is true that almost all children learn to speak eventually. Mainly speech in children develops simply by the child copying the parents, other family members and people the child meets on a daily basis. Some children learn to talk much earlier than others.  This can be because of differences in how the parents and adult caregivers talk to the child. 

Several research studies have found that the use of a special way of talking to babies called " parentese" or "motherese" or "child directed speech" helps babies to learn new words faster. "Parentese" appears to be a natural way for adults to talk to children; a kind of sing song, high pitched voice that concentrates on long drawn out vowel sounds. 

Sometimes this way of talking is referred to as "baby talk" but sometimes the term "baby talk" is also used for the way some adults talk to babies and toddlers using the immature words babies use when they are still learning how to speak correctly. The difficulty is that it isn't made clear which "baby talk" people refer to when they state whether it is useful or beneficial.

This way of talking to babies is found in countries around the world so it seems to be instinctive. From this it can be judged that "parentese" has been useful for the species as a way to develop speech in children. 

Researching speech in children is becoming easier with the development of hi-tech brain monitoring equipment which lets scientists monitor brian activity in very young babies. It has been shown now that babies prefer to listen to "baby talk". they prefer the higher pitched voice and focus on it in preference to normal adult speech patterns. So not only are parents hard-wired to use baby talk, babies and hard-wired to pay attention to it and that it is an important part of the development of speech in children.

Learn the best way to use baby talk when teaching babies to talk in the ebook Teach Baby to Talk

Teach Baby to Talk - Review

A favourable and detailed review of my ebook appeared on another blog.
Quote
"I was very pleased with the way it was written, as if I was having a conversation with somebody and they were answering my questions as i read through this book, and they reinforced some of the harder to grasp parts. Yes, I can honestly say there were a few things I found that shocked me! "     Read the whole review

Baby Speech

Baby Speech - is all about practice

Baby speech is a topic that interests all parents and baby carers. They all are madly keen to hear a baby or toddler say its first words and most are keen to know how they can help this process. Some parents however have no idea that they play a role in helping their baby's speech to develop.

There is a frantic activity going on every second of the day and night in a baby's brain that organises the brain cells, grows new connections and lets some brain cells die.  Babies are learning something almost every second of the day. Recently I came across the expression " a baby learns what it lives" and I thought that was a brilliant and simple way to express how babies learn and gives a huge clue to parents and carers what they should be doing to help a baby learn anything, not just speech.  At a simple level we can apply the principal to any skill learning and get very specific.

Example
A child will learn to play the piano if it

1. has hands mature enough to move on the keys 
2. gets lessons
3. has an instrument to practice on -  a piano
4. has the time to practice every day and, most importantly -
5. the interest and encouragement of an adult, to practice every day.

You may see that we can apply that recipe to a child's learning anything.

To apply it to baby speech learning we could say the baby needs

1. ability to hear and make sounds
2. lessons in speech - being shown how
3. an instrument to practice on - the mouth and voice (without a soother or pacifier in the way)
4. time to practice every day
5. the interest and encouragement of an adult, to practice every day

We know from research that babies start to develop language skills while they are in the womb because by 21 weeks, hearing has developed and they can hear the voice of the mother and anyone else close by. So through the fluid surrounding it, the baby hears the rhythm of speech and it's tone. We know babies can recognise their own mothers voice just after birth compared to other women's voices. Also, researchers at Leicester University in the UK discovered that at the age of 12 months babies can recognise  a piece of music that was played to them in the last three months while it was in the womb.

Babies' brains are also hard-wired for speech learning so the moment baby is born and discovers his crying reflex, he learns that ( if he has caring parents)  crying will result in getting the attention of the carer, being fed, carried, cuddled, changed, spoken to or ( really nice!) sung to. This last point, being sung to, shows how pleasure and entertainment are key ingredients in babies' learning. Parents need to be aware that boredom is a principal cause of crying and is as important to deal with as hunger or a dirty diaper or nappy. So a crying baby may just be saying " I need entertainment. Talk to me! Sing to me! Make a funny face! Tell me a nursery rhyme! "

Human beings in general repeat actions that bring them pleasure. So babies will begin their speech development by making short little cooing sounds; if those sounds get a reaction (like a smile, or mirroring of the sound back to them) they will repeat them over and over until they eventually develop, over a period of months,  into words.  Its worth repeating "babies learn what they live". It is a really useful thing to make a mental note say, ten times a day - "What is my baby learning right now?". Parents and carers do deeply influence what a baby is learning just by taking an action or not taking an action. Learn strategies for making baby speech learning a daily and entertaining part of your day.

How babies learn to talk

Scientists can now see and measure what is going on in a baby's brain as they learn language.

This video presentation from the TED series shows how the critical time for babies learning the sounds of their native language is the first 12 months of life.

Points made by the scientist Patricia Kuhl that have real significance for parents is that the babies didn't learn any new sounds from watching the teaching sessions on TV, but the babies who took part in the sessions with the live presenter did learn to recognise the new sounds. Apparently babies learning is being controlled by the social brain. So babies need to learn language form a human being not a computer or TV screen.

Another really enjoyable part of the presentation is the two mothers - one American and the other Japanese who are filmed talking to their babies using "motherese" ( also called  infant-directed talk, or adult baby-talk) that sing song, smiling, exaggerated way of talking that babies enjoy. I talk about using " baby talk" or "motherese" in my book "How to Teach Baby toTalk".

If you have any thoughts about the film, I'd love you to leave a comment. Enjoy!

Baby Gifts Delivered

If you don't have time to visit the new baby and parents, you may be looking for baby gifts that get delivered.

A recent article in the Huffington Post reported on a new survey in the UK that shows one-third of parents don't see themselves as important in how their child's speech and reading develops. Another UK survey also revealed that a large and alarming number of children do not possess a single book.

Friends. family and work colleagues looking for a baby gift that gets delivered can really help here. When giving a newborn baby gift, give a book!  There are special soft books and board books for babies - like these  eight book packs from Amazon that can be delivered direct to baby's home.

This adorable collection of very first books will tickle all of baby's senses, helping baby to learn to talk. Baby can feel, cuddle, and turn the pages, playing with each book in its special way. The colorful plastic rings can be used to attach the books onto a crib, a stroller, or a high chair or a car seat. A great baby shower or christening gift - and it gets delivered!

Teaching babies to talk - Vitamin D may play a role

It recently emerged that vitamin D may play an important role in child language development. Scientists in Australia conducted tests over  many years - monitoring vitamin D levels of mothers during pregnancy and their children's language levels at various ages. There were significant differences in that the children of mothers with least vitamin D had less well-developed language abilities.

The authors of the report caution that the results need to be replicated in other populations before firm conclusions can be drawn. However, their findings may indicate vitamin D testing in pregnant women and vitamin supplementation are advisable. The UK department of health  already has taken steps to ensure that mothers have access to vitamin D supplements through their Health Start scheme

So as well as using strategies to actively teach baby to talk , making sure your vitamin levels are at a good level may impact on how well your child learns to talk.

Music for Babies Calms

Music for Babies Calms and Develops Babies' Brains

Music can definitely help calm your baby down and put him in a restful state at bedtime or nap time. What are some good choices for a baby?

Almost anything you love or use for relaxation is good for a baby too. There are good collections of Mozart, Vivaldi or Bach for bedtime. The music of Enya can be very soothing as well. Soft harp music is also relaxing and peaceful.

You've probably seen videos and CDs for babies. There are some theories that classical music can make your baby smarter, and exposing your baby to music is part of what we do to introduce them to all the sights and sounds of their world.

When your baby's awake, there are lots of nursery rhymes or music from kids' movies that can stimulate his senses. We've known kids who respond to minimalist Phillip Glass's music; it's simple and rhythmic and when they get older, they'll dance with it. Spirituals and soft gospel music are also good choices to help the baby get to sleep.

White noise, in the form of a fan (not directed right at the baby), or from sound machines that simulate the sound of an ocean or rain can be restful as well, and can block out noise from the home. You don't need to create an artificially silent environment for the baby, however, since that can make it harder for them to get to sleep when the home's rhythms and noises get back to normal.

 The same music that's helping your baby get to sleep can help soothe your own nerves and provide a wonderful time of bonding and restfulness for you and your baby together. So this is a great time for you to explore classical music as well, if it's not already part of your life.