What should baby really be able to say bay age 1? Speech Milestones Year 1 (0-12 months)
Recently I have been hearing the question “Where is my kid supposed to be?” How do I know if they need speech? Many times we depend on watching others and how their children are developing and begin to compare our parenting skills. You hear or say, Wow that kid talks a lot!!!!! My kid is so nice and quiet!!! My second child doesn’t say as much as my first kid used to at this age. I’m not worried about it my husband said that he didn’t speak until he was 8, so he isn’t worried about our kid. I have heard several of these….multiple times. Although the comparison of your child to others around you or to your previous children can be a good jumping off point, it is important to ask your pediatrician or get information from a trained person like a speech language pathologist as to where your little one should be in their development. It is so so so important to remember that everyone develops at different times. However, the information provided is an average. We have a video of typical development for Hearing, Understanding and Speech from 0-1 year of age. And here’s a chart from ASHA.
As a speech pathologist we are to utilize our resources to their full potential and share the knowledge so that others may be educated and use resources to assist their children in appropriate language development. Even if your child is not “behind” where they are supposed to be it is not a bad idea to provide an hefty amount of communication with them. The best way to do this with little ones is by playing. Yes!!! What?!?! Play?! Yes that is it! I have spoken to several individuals that say, “No way that by me playing with my kid will make them speak.” Well…..not for all diagnoses, but in general, yes this is going to help communication. Regardless of what language it is provided in. PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS! YES ON THE FLOOR!!! Animal sounds?! YES! Vroom vroom, Beep beep?! YES all of those. We learn by imitation and modeling. Our brain is happy when we feel like we are apart of something. Little ones crave the attention and truly feel connected when they are a part of a play situation. Just a reminder this is not for all kids but for a lot. In the near future I will make another video on how to play/model with your little ones and how to read books with them.
Unfortunately, There is no magic pill. I’ve been noticing so many of my patients families expect their child to magically speak and understand what is going on in the world around them with out providing any kind of modeling or education. Sometimes with the best of their intentions it is just not common knowledge. We have to work at communication and understanding sometimes.
Hearing and Understanding
The first step to communication and your little one is knowing if they can hear you or not. Either way there is help for you. If you have any question about your little one’s hearing your pediatrician can test them. Things to look out for is their response to loud sounds or abrupt sounds. Do they turn and look at where the sound is coming from? Do they jump if startled by a loud sound etc.? Once you have established this then you can look out for their understanding of what is going on around them. Do they look when you point? Do they attend to your changes of pitch (happy sounding, upset, directions)?
Communication
What can I do to help my child…To help your little one there are several different things you can do.
Get reading, read to your little one everyday, even if it is just for 5 minuets. Even if an individual does not know how to read, use the pictures, talk about what you see, where objects are, what they are, what their function is, what color they are etc.
Explain what is happening around you.Tell them what you are doing and how it is being done. For example as I type this out on my laptop my little one just asked me to do something, I told him, do you see my fingers moving? He said yes. I proceeded to say all of these little black squares are letters, I am using my fingers to push on them to make words. So this is what I am talking about, explaining to your little ones what you are doing. Even though it feels like such common sense…I am typing is an answer we would give to someone that text or called you or yelled at you from a different room. However our little ones don’t know what that is until it is shown to them or explained to them.
Play with them, model sounds that they can imitate, like beep beep, moo, oink, woof woof, aaaaawwooooooo, as ridiculous as it may feel these common sounds help to acknowledge sounds we may hear around us and put actions to the sound or a face to the sound, like oh that small pink round thing doesn’t say moo it says oink. It’s all about making several different connections in the brain and we are in charge of giving them multiple opportunities to facilitate and use language.
Imitation of games and songs, singing to your little one helps make several different brain connections, playing peek a boo or clapping your hands, helping them clap theirs, counting their toes or fingers etc. Saying bye bye and Hello to different people or objects like Hi Grandpa, bye bye Grandpa, Hi toys, Bye toys etc.
Talk to them using whichever language you are comfortable with, our little ones are sponges, any language is fine. The more comfortable you are, the more comfortable they will be. Remember they will imitate what they hear, from the intonation to the actual words you use.
I want to talk to you about the use of technology in communicating with children, an observation I have made is that children have a lot of tech use now. Be it a phone, a tablet, a computer, the TV etc. Ok so it can be helpful right? I have to cook dinner and my 3 year old is pulling on my leg, or whatever situation you find yourself in. Here is the thing, tech is not always bad. It’s not always good either. So…if you are going to use it be active and proactive with it, talk to them about what is happening, ask them what they see etc. To be completely honest, it is really truly not a good idea to have your baby using the phone. For age one and younger I do not recommend giving them this kind of technology use at this point in their life. Mostly because the understanding is not there yet. It is just not at that level of development. Songs that come from youtube etc are good but only if they are being backed up by a caregiver. Like sining a long with them doing hand movements or body movements, clapping, letting your little one look at your mouth and how it is moving along with the words of the song, etc. Engage your little one by making eye contact, tapping their legs, hands in rhythm, etc. There are several ways to utilize this to your benefit, but by having it as a babysitter for a prolonged period of time can put a strain on some individuals language development. There are many benefits to using technology, it opens so many doors, it is just important to be a leader and not let your child get lost in the screen. I will make another video of this also on how to effectively utilize technology for learning and language.
Do they need speech? This is a HUGE question right?! If you suspect that your little one is falling behind or doesn’t communicate as they should be, it is never a problem to get an evaluation. Simply speak to your pediatrician and talk to them about what you have seen or are hearing/ or not hearing from your little on. After you get a referral a speech pathologist will be able to speak to you and evaluate your little one, sometimes your little one doesn’t actually need skilled services and they just need a little redirection or help from you to get them going.
Speaking as a speech pathologist, and I think I can speak for all speech pathologists in stating…: We are here for you, we want to support you and your family, we are willing to give so much of ourselves to help you all in your communication. We are with you in this journey! We are here to lead you and stand by you in your/our communication journey. We are apart of the support team that is needed to foster the growth of communication. We are here! Waiting to help. Every journey is different and we are here for all of them. Let’s get talking!
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