Talking - helping your baby to develop

Your child’s ability to speak is directly link to their ability to listen. By listening to others, your child learns what words sound like and how to put a sentence together. As a baby, he discovered first how to make sounds, then how to make those sounds into real words, hearing the word mummy or daddy for the first time is an amazing feeling it makes such difference from the noise and the conversations in their own language that only they understand. Once they master the first few words there then follows a period of extraordinary growth, as you watch your toddler go from speaking a few simple words to asking questions, giving directions, to saying no and why and then to regaling you with stories they have made up, watch out for that it is not so much lying as it is experimenting but they can be very convincing, I recall a story of a child drawing a visit to a hospital to see an uncle that had been in a car crash only to find that it was completely made up the child loved the fact that he had been believed and try may different stories for the fun of it.

Milestones

12 to 18 months
By the time your child is one it should have a grasp of a handful of words, by the time they are 14 months they may have up to 20 "words" (these may be more like sounds) that only they and someone close to them can understand. They even practice inflection, raising their tone when asking a question. It is likely that they will quickly realise the power that talking gives them to get what they want or need. The words may still come with hand action to communicate their meanings but the hand gestures will lessen as the speech develops. It is difficult for them at this time as they struggle to be understood so don't be surprised if you see grumpiness and frustration this is a good sign as it shows how hard they are trying to communicate and that they care whether or not they are understood.

By 16 months, your toddler will probably start making many common consonant sounds, such as t, d, n, w, and h. Once they learn these sounds it leads to a spurt in development. Don't expect to hear all these sounds in actual words yet, but you may hear your child repeating them to themselves or to their toys it not madness though it may sound like it, it is simply practice.

19 to 24 months
By this age you child will understand up to 200 words and use up to 75 of them on a regular basis. Most of these words will be nouns, car, dog but between 18 and 20 months, the pace will pick up as they can learn ten or more words each day. This is the time to be very weary of what you are saying as children have a habit of repeating choice phrases at the most in appropriate moments and sometime in the correct inference. Starting around the third birthday your child will start to form sentences and be able to sing simple tunes.

25 to 30 months
Now that your child has a bigger vocabulary you will find them experimenting with volume. They may shout or whisper at the most inappropriate moments but they will develop an instinct for the right volume with gentle encouragement from you. Between ages of 2 to 3 their working vocabulary will grow to up to 300 words and they will understand up to 900 words. They will start to string nouns and verbs together to form complete but simple sentences.

31 to 36 months
By the time your child reaches three their speech is much more sophisticated they will be able to carry out conversations with anyone they will even change their speech to suit the people that they interact with. You may find that they speak to you in one manner but their speak changes around other children.

You can help your child's language skills develop in many different ways firstly,

Talk, It has been shown that children whose parents speak to them extensively when they were babies have significantly higher IQs and richer vocabularies than other children. Its good to describe what you're doing, point things out, ask questions, sing songs, it is ok to use some baby talk but bear in mind that your child is learning from you they learn to speak through listening so if its all baby talk their speak development will take longer

Read, Try to read to them regularly this is a great way to expose him to new vocabulary, it helps them to understand the way in which a sentence is put together, and how stories flow. It helps if you not only read to the child but you ask your them to show you things to find things on the page.

Listen, try to face your child when they talk to you they are more likely to be responsive if they feel that you are interested in what they are saying.

As with walking all children develop at different rate but it is best to have them checked by a medical professional if you feel that they are far behind the normal developmental stages, trust your instinct you know your child better than anyone, below are some possible warning signs that it is worth looking out for.

At 12 to 18 months

at 12 months, your child doesn’t use any gestures like waving or shaking their head, they are not at least trying to make sounds, or they are not communicating to you when they need help to do something
at 15 months, they fail to respond to words like no or to someone saying bye to them, if they can't say a few words, or they don't say mummy or daddy or derivatives of those words
at 16 months, they can not point to the parts of the body when asked to
at 18 months, they are not saying at least 6 words
by 19 to 20 months, they are not pointing out things of interest such as cars or dogs
by 20 months, they aren't making at least six consonant sounds
at 21 months, they do not respond to simple directions
by 24 months, they don't imitate actions or words of others, or they, can't point to named pictures in a book or are unable to join two words together, or know what house hold items do
at 30 months, they can't name at least three body parts or be understood by anyone in the family
by 32 months, has difficulty singing fragments of nursery rhymes
at 36 months, doesn't ask questions or can't be understood by strangers at least some of the time, or unable to name most common household objects, can't speak in short phrases, are unable to understand short instructions.
at 3, they have no interest in other children, they have extreme problems separating from a parent
at 4, isn't able to be fully understood by any one