Early Language Development: Ages 0 to 4

K recently had her 2 year check up, and the nurses asked their usual questions to gauge her development. One question was "How many words are in her vocabulary? 10? 20?"

This seemed strange to my husband and me. Is 10 or 20 words really normal for a two year old? We had some early talkers who started speaking in sentences at the age of 1 year, but all the same, 10 or 20 words seems really low to me for a 2 year old. So TJ and I started writing down words that we know she says, and within half an hour, we had a list of 125. Since then, I have thought of more words that she says, and I know I could double or triple that list.

What makes our kids different? Personally, I don't believe anything makes our kids different. I think that if people pay attention to the "baby babble" they will realize that their babies are trying to communicate. For example, when M was a baby, I read the book Baby Minds, which greatly influenced how I talked to the girls.

There were several skills I learned that were helpful:

1) Talk with them about everything you do in the course of a day
2) Listen to them and apply good listening skills
3) Pyramid language development
4) Teach them baby signs
5) Read to them

Talk to them
I would talk to them about everything I did. If I was changing their clothes, it was a great opportunity to talk about the names of clothing and parts of the body (i.e. "We pull your shirt over your head. Now we put your arms in the sleeves.") If I was changing their diapers, I would talk about dirty diapers and making them all clean. If I was giving them baths, I would talk about scrubbing their toes and their tummies.

A lot of times, I would make songs up for all these things as well. Though the song could change from week to week. I think M's first attempts to communicate with me were actually in song. I was singing to her, and she just started to sing back. A few weeks later, I noticed that her baby babble had a lot of "k" sounds when I changed her diaper. "I wonder why," I thought as I began to talk to her. Suddenly, I heard my own words and noticed that I said "clean" a lot as I'd change the diaper. Dare I say she was only about 3 months old?

She might not know WHAT I was saying, but even so young, she was trying to imitate language and associating certain sounds with certain situations. Why? Simply because I talked to her.

At 1 year old, K would say "I am stinky" and "Diaper Change." Not just single words, but stringing words together and making sentences.


Listen to them
Language is about communication. Children need to know that language is about expressing themselves, and they learn that by being heard. Just recently R started showing a great deal more self-confidence in her communication, and I have been wowed by her four-year-old mind as she begins to tell me stories and such that she has created in her own mind.

She loves to play with Lego's, and she built what she said was a pirate boat. These were the pirates who loved to dance. She sang me a whole theme song that she had made up for them. Then she began to tell me a little bit about how they lived (they eat cookies after they ate real food) and what they did (they danced and were nice to each other and loved each other) and why their boat had to have walls (to keep out the mice). And at the end, she announced, "They are so cute."

Now let me tell you something, R doesn't get to talk much. When her language skills were ready to take off, she had an older sister who talked over her, and then she had a baby sister who seemed to oust her from the center of her mommy's lap. She needs that special moment each day when there are no sisters to interrupt her, and in that moment, she gains some very important communication and pre-reading and self-confidence skills. And the most important thing I can do is just listen.

Some helpful hints:
1) Get on their level and make eye contact. This helps them know you are listening and that they are important.
2) Rephrase in your own words what you have heard ("So these pirates love to dance on their ship."). This helps them to know that they are really being heard.
3) Ask appropriate questions ("So then what do the pirates like to do?" or "What kind of cookies do they like most?"). This helps you to stay involved without taking over, and it helps them stretch their imaginations just a little further.

Pyramid
This is an idea on how to introduce new ideas and skills. Before they are ready, you supply the answer. When they seem to grow into the new skill, you help them do it. Then when they seem to master it, you step back and let them do it for themselves.

For example, I would introduce the early puzzles (wooden block puzzles) aroun 12 to 18 months. At that age, I'd dump it out and do the puzzle slowly, explaining what I was doing as I did it. Between 18 and 24 months, I would let them put in the pieces, saying "try this spot" and then I'd turn the wooden board to match the piece up as they pushed the piece in. After that, I'd let them do it by themselves without my help, watching from a distance, giving suggestions if they got frustrated.

Here is an example conversation for pyramiding language skills for a 0 to 9 month baby:
"Do you have a dirty diaper?" pause
"Yeah, we need to change that diaper." pause
"Let's make you all clean." pause
"Yeah, that is much better. All clean." pause
"Do you feel better now?" pause
"Yeah, that's better."

All those pauses are to give them an opportunity to answer. Of course, they are not ready to answer, so after the pause, you offer their answer for them. And don't be surprised when one day they say "yeah" during that pause.

R was about 9 months old when someone at church said, "Aren't you the cutest baby?" and she said "Yeah." Later that day, someone asked her if she was ornery, and she said "Yeah." She knew how to recognize the voice influction for a question and knew what the answer to a question was.

So, that is the early pyramid language skills: supplying the answers for them. But as they get older, you give them more tools to express themselves without your answers. For example, giving them choices or teaching them baby signs. And finally, you apply your listening skills to their conversations.

Baby Signs
The best time to introduce baby signs is between 10 and 18 months. They may be trying to communicate, but we cannot understand them yet. So this is where you can start supplying them with the opportunity to express themselves without words. Some of my favorite ones were for things that they would want, like milk, water, food, and to say "more" of something, but the very first sign was for "all done" so that they would not scream at me when I tried to keep feeding them and they were full. These words are good for stopping temper tantrums before they happen.

From there, I taught them signs for animals. K right now loves to give a running dialog of everything she sees in her little world. And she no longer uses baby signs to express herself as she is 2 now, but even younger children like to tell you about the world around them. If they are excited about the cat they just saw, they will great frustrated if they can't tell you about it.

You can make up your own signs, or you can learn a little of American Sign Language. Either way, baby signs are very useful at this stage of communication. I have heard that studies show that sign language helps them transitions to words even faster and helps them learn what words are for at a faster rate as well.

Read to them
Reading to them is important, but for developing language skills, it is good to pyramid reading much like many other things. At an early age, they want to look at pictures. Reading the text on the page does not interest them. I know this simply because I tried with all three of them. But honestly, there is nothing wrong with that.

If you point to the pictures and talk about what you see rather than just reading the words on the page, they will learn so many more words that way. A short 2 minute book can take 15 to 20 minutes in our house. Why? Because we talk about what's going on. So for K, we point to things on the page and talk about the pictures. She has recently learned a few new words that way, like turtle, crab, and sad. K really just started getting into books, and we took her to the library to pick out some just for her. She picked out 10 and wants each one read to every night.

For one baby board book with pictures of baby faces, we talked about each baby. "That baby is so happy." pause "He has a spoon. He put that spoon in his mouth." pause "Do you see his smile?" pause As K is now 2, those pauses are filled with little comments from her. So enjoyable to hear.

As a mother, this always touches my heart, to hear them give back to me the joy that I have put into them.