The baby learns to talk slowly. When he could not say a word, his parents could communicate with him, as we have seen. The boy explained with his calling or his calls if he was starving, wet or alone, and his parents learned to interpret his requirements.
And in doing so, they made him see that he was understood, that his attempts to communicate are effective. That great discovery is one of the central columns of his first years of life. The baby learns to speak and wants to learn to speak, to better understand the people he loves so much.
As we have already tried, his first "words" arrive before words. He uses his voice to make sounds, his first noises serve him to exercise his sounding device and to discover reciprocal communication. Since his parents react to their attempts at conversation, he is encouraged to continue practicing. By interpreting his first babble as words, the interest in this learning is reinforced.
Do you remember the first time your son called you "dad" and "mom"? We exploit with pride, we congratulate him with passion. And he, who realizes that he has just entered a new world, will be as exultant as we are. Soon he will learn to call you. You will continue to experience sounds, even if they are not yet recognizable words.
The babies then begin to emit repetitive syllables, a little random, a bit like imitation of what he hears. When we make him see those sounds have meaning he feels madly happy. One of his first babble can be "ma, ma, ma" or "pa, pa, pa". And if we react positively, asking him if he has said "mom" or "dad", indicating that we are ourselves, his object of love and his caregivers, joy is overflowing.
The paper of the parents
The paper of the parents is to understand that their little ones are true sponges that assimilate everything that happens with hunger to know more. When he begins with his chatter, the parents should keep up the conversation, answering when the child pauses and letting him respond as well. They are learning the patterns of communication with the example we give them.
Soon they start using invented words that obviously refer to a particular object: the tit, the bottle, water, some special toy, another child or animals. So the appropriate thing is to ask him if he refers to that thing, repeating the correct word so that he assimilates it. Always remember that enthusiasm on our part increases your interest in striving to continue learning to communicate. It is not appropriate to pretend that we do not understand them, that is very frustrating. It is already enough when we don't really understand it. Refusing to have recognized one of his incipient words disappoints him.
When we really do not understand you have to be patient, because the child will not always be. Suppose he points to a ball, and uses a word invented by him, for example "tilena" (this is what my son used without us knowing where he got it). It was hard for me to interpret it and later, I was a translator with this and many others when we talked with other less accustomed people.
The little one, when we don't understand it, will reinforce the meaning by pointing or even be angry. An effort must be made to understand and, in order to reformulate his request, it is convenient to congratulate him with signs of love, motivating his efforts in the speech.
Another way to help is reinforce the actions we do with questions and phrases that we can repeat, indicating the objects saying their name or explaining what we are doing.
For example, if you point to the fridge because you are hungry, we can open it and show what you have to eat by saying the name of each thing and encouraging to repeat it, asking if that is what you want, although it may be difficult to always get it right.
The story of an orange or the importance of the concrete
It will be easier to understand if we talk about real things, that you can try, touch, smell. Always with logical prudence you have to let them manipulate them, because in your mind seeing something is not yet a complete knowledge of the object.
We know how orange smells, what touch it has, whether it is hard or soft, how its roundness feels in the hands. He does not, it is not enough to see the orange, he has to touch it, learn by his senses all about it, and finally archive in his mind the name "orange" for that object. Knowing its full characteristics helps you to assimilate that "orange" is not just this round, orange, rough and fragrant thing that we have placed in your hands; "Orange" is a category, a word that will serve all the oranges that you will find from now on. The word is thus filled with content, through sound and senses. You already know what it is. With a little time you will learn to pronounce the word well.
"Mom has bought oranges today, do you know what an orange is? - Pause to" answer "-" Look, this is an orange, do you want one? - Pause - Mom is going to give you the orange. I give you the orange, honey. Take it - we put it in your hands with another long pause, we help you to take it if the little hands waver - The orange is round - we pass the hand with it through the orange and we are citing other properties, such as its touch or its color or its smell. We let him then experiment with her, responding to his babble, chatting.
Speak with the whole body and at all times
Communication is not just words, it is accompanied by gestures and movements too. In addition to offering tactile stimuli of the concrete, we must accompany our speech with hand movements, pointing, laughing, marking vocalization. Even singing and dancing are part of learning.
The baby will not be able to understand a conversation from other adults or his older siblings, however, that is no reason to exclude him from communication. We will act as translators. We will address him. We will listen to you when you try to participate and we will respond. The idea is to feel part of the communicative process, do not ask him to be quiet listening, separating him. He is among us and is one more person, and he wants to participate.
Parents should talk and talk a lot. By accompanying actions with words, discourse and stimuli become much richer, causing them to slowly assimilate grammatical structures, names of things and actions. That way the little one will learn to communicate their needs and desires.
Conclusion
Repeating words and patterns reinforces learning, especially if they are combined with hand movements, gestures and sensory experimentation. We will continue to see how the baby learns to speak and the way in which we can help you make this discovery more effective and more enjoyable.
