Understanding Infant Language

Language is something that is not only defined by the spoken words and this is exactly why infant language development becomes necessary to understand. Actually, infant language development starts the moment the child is born. This is because language contains verbal as well as behavioral skills. Moreover, the language of infants can also include the facial expressions as well.

So, you see, it can be pretty hard to understand what your baby is trying to communicate to you. Hence, in this article, we provide you with some tips and techniques on how you can actually understand infant language. Read on to find out how to understand a baby's language.

From birth to 1 month - This is a very critical period as during this time, the infants respond or try to communicate only through their reflexes. During this time, the infant hasn't even started to develop any kind of cognitive actions. That's why it becomes very important that you understand what your baby is trying to tell you. These actions might include mouth movements, which is the first step in learning a language but since the vocal cord of the infant is not developed, you cannot really hear anything substantial.

1 - 4 months - During this time, the infant starts to understand various patterns like, for example, the presence of a bottle means that it’s feeding time. It is during this time that the child starts to make vowel noises and by the end of this period (4 months), they start to make some sounds which are known as consonant sounds.

4 - 8 months - This is the time when the infant starts to explore the outer world. They do so by their hands and mouth and also begin to experiment with various kinds of objects. During this time they also start to develop vocabulary skills and start to join various consonants and vowels to form some kind of sentence.

8 - 12 months - During this period, the infant starts to show much more advanced behavior. They start to mimic actions like clapping, etc. They also start to use real words and by the time they are a year old, they start to speak at least a dozen words.

Tips and Techniques

Follow these tips and techniques to encourage your child and help him/ her to develop the language skills better.

You can sing or talk in a high-pitched voice to your baby. Contrary to popular belief, studies have quite clearly shown that infants are more likely to respond to this type of voice rather than a voice with normal tone.
Try and talk to your infant every day even though you might not understand what he is trying to say or do.
Always look in to the eyes of the baby and talk to him about what you are doing or perhaps, what he is doing and what is going on around him.
You can also start to take your infant out to the store, the park, the movies or anywhere else you might want to go. It is important because the baby, in this way will be exposed to various experiences.
Read to your infant. Start by reading books that has lots of colors in it as your baby would get attracted to bright colors. Subsequently, as the baby grows, you can start to use books with normal colors.

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