From Prattle to Pronunciation
A child’s development, from infancy to adolescence, involves several aspects, such as physical, emotional, social, cognitive and language development, all of which are equally important for overall development. Language and communication skills make children better equipped to socialize and learn from their environment as well as formal classrooms. According to the Child Development Institute, communication refers to both speech or verbal means, and language refers to using shared rules to put words together to express thoughts and feelings. As we all know, parents are the first and the most important teachers for children. Therefore, they need to understand the concept of language development to help their children learn the skills of interacting and communicating with their environment.
Understanding Language Development Stages
Language development supports a child’s ability to communicate, express and understand feelings. It also supports thinking, problem solving and developing and maintaining relationships, according to RaisingChildren.net.au. Although learning a language is a continuous process, the first few years of a child’s growth are highly crucial. In the first few months of their life, babies develop many of the foundations of speech. Also, for the first three years, children understand a lot more than they can say.
Let’s look at the various stages involved in a child learning to use language.
1. In their infancy, babies just coo and laugh, play with sounds and make some gestures. Babbling and crying are the most important forms of communication in this stage. As months pass by, your child may start producing unintelligible strings of sound in a conversational tone. By the time a child turns 12 months old, he/she begins to make the first words.
2. During the age of 12–18 months, babies start adding words to their vocabulary and understanding instructions.
3. During the age of 18 months to 2 years, a child starts making short sentences and is easily able to follow simple instructions.
4. During the age of 2–3 years, children learn to speak longer and more complex sentences, make accurate speech sounds and make others understand what they wish to convey.
5. When a child turns three and starts going to preschool, their vocabulary increases and allows them to talk on various subjects and ask a lot of questions. They are even capable of making up stories by now.
6. At around five years of age, children learn newer words and start understanding phonetics and thus their pronunciation also improves. They also start communicating clearly.
As with all other components of a child’s development, language develops best when parents take part and work to improve their child’s speech. A parent needs to continuously interact with their kids to not only understand what he/she wants to convey but also to enhance his/her knowledge of language. This interaction could be talking to them even if they don’t understand, responding to sounds and gestures made by them and listening to whatever they have to say even if it does not make sense. Last but not the least, read out to them so as to encourage their imagination, besides boosting their vocabulary.
Besides regular interaction with children, parents need to ensure that they provide them with adequate nutritional support to aid overall development. For this, they can teach them about the benefits of various types of foods and give them a calcium-rich, fortified milk powder like Enfagrow A+, which contains DHA to boost brain development.
Reference Links:
· http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/language_development.html
· https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/language_development/
· http://www.livestrong.com/article/174703-why-is-language-development-important-to-a-child/
