Parents await baby’s first word with a vigilance that rivals the arrival of baby himself.

The ability to communicate is one of the markers of leaving babyhood and entering full personhood.  In about 17 years, this ability will also be a marker of leaving home, and entering college.  Got SAT scores?

Talkative Toddlers defined:

Toddler

Well, to be precise I’ll define a toddler as someone who might or might not walk alone yet.  And if he does walk, he might or might not do it with unsteady steps, hence the word, toddle.

To be imprecise, yet ironically more accurate to the way the word is used, I’ll decree that a toddler is generally considered to be a child between the ages of 12 and 36 months.  A child with one or two birthdays behind him.

Talkative

The ability to use, understand, enjoy, practice, or respond to a developmentally-appropriate quantity of spoken language sounds, body language cues, and meanings.

Your 12 to 24 month-old will be talkative when he:

• Uses words and/or body language to express himself.
• Learns enough words to follow simple instructions.
• Has favorite songs, fingerplays, poems, or stories.  And enjoys hearing them repeated.
• Speaks baby jargon.  This interesting phenomenon sounds like “real” speech because of your baby’s ability to imitate grownup speech rhythms and vocal inflections.

Your 24 to 36 month-old will be a talkative one when he:

• Speaks in sentences.  Two and three words, at first.
• Understands orientational words like under, over, on, behind, in, out, and front.
• Is able to follow more complex instructions.
• Remember the words to his favorite songs, fingerplays, poems, or stories.  He’ll even say the words along with you as you read.
• Enjoys naming things.  Pictures in books, body parts, environmental graphics and print.

Success Secrets Revealed:

1. Talkative toddlers began life as talked-to babies.
2. They were seen and heard.  Adults spoke Parentese to them, listened to their cues, respected their requests.
3. Their parents knew what to expect.  Their loved ones understood that babies can understand more words, and understand them sooner than they can express those very words.
4. Talkative toddlers are multimedia-savvy.  In addition to words, there are songs, poems, and storybooks in their world.
5. They had role models.  Their big people (parents, siblings) played with songs, poems, conversations, books —  words in general.

I’m talking about the ability to talk.  There are differences in temperament, learning styles, and personality that will determine some children’s communication preferences.  Those traits are for people to choose and honor as they grow.  It is the work of parents to make sure that children have words at the ready when they want to use them.

That used be called “Mother -wit.”  Now it’s called psychosomatic.

It’s a rare instinct that hasn’t been dulled by disrespect, replaced by reference libraries, or made out to be too primitive for these technology-based times.

The way that parents (most adults actually, in every studied culture, the world over) automatically talk when they’re talking to babies is an anthropological victory.  In the baby biz, we call that special language “Parentese.”

As an attuned parent, you are learning your infant’s rhythms, preferences, and habits, so of course you’re learning your family’s new language.  But surely you’ve also witnessed something like this:

While mother shops, a young baby sits contentedly in her stroller, minding her own business, conducting a taste test on her toes.  A middle-aged stranger strolls by, glimpses baby’s fresh face, perfect contentment, perfectly cute outfit, and becomes enchanted by all that happiness and all those pastels.

Within seconds, the grumpy lady who hasn’t faked niceness to her own neighbors since the last hurricane warning is overtaken by her instinct to communicate with a baby.  And of course, to be answered back.  A smile, a giggle, a wiggle — even a brief glance will do.  To ensure her chances of success, the lady formerly known as grumpy will:

Your baby’s first word, like your baby’s first step, is a journey, instead of the finish line we sometimes think it is.

I’m not trying to spoil anybody’s fun.  Your child’s first independent step is such a thrill that it’s dizzying.  Not for baby — for parents, I mean.  And the first recognizable word? Nothing less than an event — hey, I know the date, time, and GPS coordinates for my first kid’s first word, okay?

I’m just saying…. while you await the first word, or the first step, why not enjoy the developmental signs that are posted along the route?

As regular readers of this blog know, the newborn first translates her communiques into the language of the cry.  Within weeks after her birth, baby will have organized her cries into different sounding requests.  At about 3 months old, your baby will discover the joy of laughing.  By 6 months of age, she’s beginning to babble for entertainment, but for a purpose, too.  Your child is practicing the way her utterances sound and feel in her mouth as she attempts them.

A big milestone in receptive language (what baby can comprehend or comply with) occurs around 6 months of age:  your infant will turn her head to the sound of her name, looking around to seek out the source.  Beautiful.

A milestone in expressive language (what baby can you know, express) occurs not long after:  at around 7 months old, baby starts making consonant-based sounds.  One-syllable sounds at first:  gah, bah, kah, dah, and mah — I know, I know! That “mah” thing is particularly exciting, but um…. it’s just a sound for now.  At around one-year old, your child will say “Mama” and “Dada” like she means it.  Because she will.

Within a month or two of producing the consonant-based sounds, your young talker will link the monosyllables together.  Then she’ll develop the ability to imitate on purpose the sounds you make.

A few more notes for the journey:

• Receptive language ability (figuring out what comes out of your mouth) is a much better indicator of language development than expressive ability (what baby can make her own mouth say), during the first three years.
• When your (approximately) 9-month old infant can follow your instruction to wave “bye-bye” while saying something that sounds like “bye-bye”, you will know that she has combined several developmental markers into one communication action.
• Multilingual households might see a shift in the timeline of language development.  But amazingly, developing twice (or thrice) as many languages doesn’t take twice or thrice as much time.  Just a little longer.  Sometimes.

Scientists have discovered that babies between the age of 6 and 12 months are also ruthless editors — they simply don’t bother with sounds that don’t occur in what will be their native languages. Although babies’ brains are born ready to hear, understand, and produce all sounds of all languages known to humankind, the brain makes choices based on exposure, experiences, and usage.

]]> http://www.mommygarten.com/language-development/your-babys-first-word/feed/ 2 http://www.mommygarten.com/language-development/a-shout-out-for-crying-part-2/ http://www.mommygarten.com/language-development/a-shout-out-for-crying-part-2/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:29:32 +0000 Carly Jennings http://www.mommygarten.com/?p=107

Yesterday, I talked about how crying is engineered to produce a response from parents and caregivers.

Just as an adorable baby is irresistible, an upset baby is difficult to ignore.  We have an instinct to want to make things alright.

I think crying is an amazing accomplishment on your baby’s part.  This is the sound of your resourceful baby, already organizing her communication skills into a message.  An attention-getting one, eh?

By the time you have been on the job for about a month, your skill level will catch up to hers!

You’ll begin to recognize and differentiate the tone, pitch, volume, and urgency of her cries.  You’ll respond more quickly, and more accurately.  She’ll learn to trust you to meet her needs.  In the process, you will all settle into being a securely attached and confident family.

Parents often suspect hunger as the cause of the cry.  With baby needing to take in nourishment 8 – 12 times in each 24-hour period, that might be a good guess some of the time.

Continued crying, without other hunger signals, could mean that hunger is not the issue that baby needs your help to resolve.

• She might feel sick. This possibility worries new parents the most.  You should worry less.  Most of the days of her life, she will have a range of needs that you’ll be able to respond to without medical help.
• Your newborn could be uncomfortable. She just relocated from her own personal climate-controlled nudist colony, to a diaper.
• Again, with the discomfort. She might cry if she’s too warm.  She might cry if she’s too cool.  Hey –  some things confuse even me, so that’s all I got on this one.  You’re welcome.
• She might be tired. Swaddling is a way to calm a new baby by helping her to regain some stability in her body, and control over her limbs.  Some babies like to be swaddled in a way that allows freedom for a favorite thumb.
• What if she’s lonely? Once she finds out all that cool stuff you’ll do for her, she’s going to want you to do all that cool stuff for her.  Like rocking, holding, counting her toes, gazing, smiling.
• Lonely, schmonely.  She might be overstimulated.  At first newborns will fall asleep to ward this off, but later, she will develop much more of an interest in spit bubbles, playing, smiling, all that.  How much goo-goo, gaa-gaa can a gal take?  She’ll let ya know.
• Then there’s the diaper change. A full diaper is a likely target of her disdain.  From day one, she’ll be producing a couple of wet diapers, and one or two soiled ones.  Within a week, she will QUADruple her daily output.

Your baby might be trying to tell you a number things in the relatively small amount of time she spends crying.  Most of the rest of the time, she will be busy with other things like bonding, finding her hand, looking at stuff.  When crying does come up, it is a natural sign of healthy development.  Especially language and emotional development.   A cry for help is her way of putting into words her expression of faith that the help will come.