10 Simple Ways to Encourage Speech & Language Development with your Littlest Ones (from birth to a year old!)

 

With babies being able to hear sounds from outside the womb around the 7 month of pregnancy, doctors and researchers have begun to explore how early learning really begins.  Infants immediately begin to learn from their environment and the individuals that surround them.  Early exposure to speech and language is crucial to a child’s development.  This leaves parents wondering what more they can do to encourage speech and language development so that their baby is at an utmost advantage.  Here are 10 simple things you can with you littlest one!  Most of these ideas can be started around 4 months old, but don’t feel silly starting them sooner either!

 

1.  Play Peek-a-boo.

The great thing about peek-a-boo is that you can play it any place, anytime.  You don’t need anything at all!  So hide behind your hands, a book, a wall, a blanket, a toy and pop out!  This simple game is great for teaching babies, “If I do this, you’ll do that.”  Understanding this cause/effect concept is one of the first steps of problem solving and a precursor to language development.  After “popping out” from the same place a few times, switch it up – come from a different direction.  This will keep your baby thinking and wondering!  Whenever Matthew is in his highchair and the other boys are eating, we play peek-a-boo.  I hide behind his highchair suction toy.  It’s cool because he can actually see my through the toy, but bursts with excitement when I pop out one of the sides.  Super simple and you’re helping your baby develop a very important concept.

 

2.  Let out some hot air.

Puff your cheeks up with air, then take your baby’s hands and have them poke or press on your cheeks.  Next, let the air out of your mouth!  This is another game that builds on the concept of “If I do this, you’ll do that.”  As your baby gets older and can better coordinate his/her motor movements, he/she will start to reach for your cheeks all by him/herself.  We are actually all born with the desire to problem solve, and you can encourage your baby to work on this skill with simple games like this.

 

3.  Monkey See, Monkey Do

 

As your baby grows, you will see him/her start to study your face and movements and then try to imitate them him/herself.  Imitation is one of the greatest ways we learn.  Think about how you learn.  Many times, we see what someone else does, and then we try it ourselves.  To encourage imitation and raise baby’s own awareness of his/her actions, you should imitate them.  Baby sticks out his/her tongue, stick it out right back.  Baby is making raspberries, you make raspberries too.  You can also use imitating to create more meaningful behaviors.  Just yesterday, Matthew was trying to raise his hands while sitting up.  I imitated his movements by reaching my own arms up to the sky and paired it will, “so big!”  Every time Matthew raised his arms, I would raise mine too and repeat, “So big!”

 

4.  Build it UP!!!

 

Building anticipation during play time is a great way to engage and connect with your baby.  These social connections help serve as a motivator for communication.  As in – I like that, I like you, I want more so let me try and find a way to get you!  This little dump truck has been a favorite of all of my boys when they were babies.  It should have been an indication to me of the truck and digger obsession that was going to follow us throughout the toddler years.  It was also a lifesaver for dreaded tummy time with my first baby boy who wanted nothing to do with being on his belly.  Here’s how I build some anticipation with it.  I lay a few feet away from the baby on my tummy facing him. I hold the truck in my hand and roll it towards him and away from him but don’t send it to him yet!  I count while I roll and use big exaggerated emotions, “1…  2…  3… BIG PAUSE… GO!!!”  I send the truck rolling right towards the baby (not too hard of course!).  It’s so fun to see my son’s excitement building as I repeat this very simple activity again and again!   

 

5.  Switch it up.

 

We tend to change the baby in the same places, feed him/her in the same positions, and have things in his/her environment set up in the same spot day after day.  As your baby becomes more and more aware of his environment, he/she will develop a memory for where things are.  This is an amazing thing but to give your baby a little brain work out, switch it up a bit.  My favorite thing to do is move the highchair to another place in the dining room – give the baby a whole new view to take in!

 

6.  Establish routines.

Although it is beneficial to switch things up a bit, babies also thrive off of routines.  If you go through the same motions each time you do a certain activity – say bath time or dinner time – your baby will know what to expect and will begin thinking about what comes next.  This skill is great for working on memory, which in turns benefits language development as well!

 

7.  Say it, Sign it!

Teaching your baby simple signs at an early age can help advance language development before your baby is ready to produce speech.  This doesn’t mean you have to be proficient in American Sign Language, making up your own signs to mean words that are important to your baby works just as well.  You can start using these signs with your baby as early as 4 or 5 months.  Don’t expect them to start signing right back but once they start making the connection between your words paired with a sign to what they want to express, you’ll be amazed at what your baby will start doing!  Some words that you can pair with signs are “more,” “milk,” “eat,” “sleep” or any words that are a major part of your daily routines.  I used the Baby Signs program with my oldest son and he really took to it.  At 9 months he was signing “light,” “more,” and “flower.”  By 15 months, he was combining a sign with a word to increase his language production (Example: He would sign “more” then say milk.).  My son Michael will still sign at times when he feels like we aren’t getting the point of what he’s saying.  It’s so cute.  He’ll say, “mo nilk pease” (more milk please) and if we don’t get it right away, he’ll repeat it again but add the signs that he knows (and angry tone of course). 

 

8.  Keep the conversation going.

It’ll be a while before your baby starts engaging you in full blown conversation, so for now, you’re going to have to do all the work.  Ask your baby questions, and then respond with the answers.  Your baby makes a sound, pretend like you know exactly what he/she said and respond right back.  Talking to your baby is probably the most beneficial thing you can do.  Describe your surroundings, name everything, narrate what you’re doing and what you’re babies doing, describe how he/she is feeling – there is always something to talk about!

 

9.  Read books and ask questions even if you’re the only one who knows the answers.

While reading your favorite stories, ask your baby questions.  Animals in your story – ask what each one says, and then you say the answer.  Ask what’s going to happen next, and then give away the ending.  It keeps your conversation going.  It gets your baby in tune to questions and provides a model for what to answer. 

 

10.  Over and over again…

 

Babies and toddlers and children and even adults love to read the same book over and over again.  We like knowing what to expect, anticipating our favorite part, and listening to the sounds of the words over and over again.  If you read the same stories again and again, you’ll start to see your baby have the same reactions each time you read it.  Two of my favorites are Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Ratthman.  The rhythm of Goodnight Moon is soothing and the simple pictures and objects named throughout the story are great for building vocabulary.  Goodnight Gorilla is mostly a wordless book, which is great because you can make the story as simple or as complicated as you want.  The snoring gorilla at the end brings giggles too!  I must have read that book a thousand times to my son when he was a baby and after a while when we got to the very last page, he would turn around to look at me when I was about to make the snoring sound. 

These 10 simple activities can become a part of your everyday life and can allow you to encourage your baby’s language development in so many ways!

Check out my SUPER SLP onesie!!



Love & Language,

Marisa