It’s about time girl…

Posted by: Sharmila Rajah, 28-Apr-2008

After a couple of months babbling dada -dada, Ayanna has finally said those magic words – MAMA MAMA. Yes.. yes I know there’s no reason to get overly excited; Ayanna says these indiscriminately, with no meaning attached to what’s being said. Nevertheless, it’s great to hear them out loud – so well articulated and with such love attached J.

 

Ayanna is busy practicing her ‘m’ sounds. She’s added baba –baba to her list as well. She’s vocalizing and attempting to imitate sounds she hears around her. She started with dada as it’s the easiest consonant to pronounce. All these are part of Ayanna’s journey in developing her linguistic skills. Hers began at birth with the first words heard.

 

Soon Ayanna will begin to understand the names of other people and objects she sees daily. In a few months time, she may begin to follow simple commands such as ‘wave bye-bye’ or ‘give me a kiss’.

 

It is important to encourage receptive and spoken language development every day in many ways. Try:

 

-         Slowing things down: help baby pick out words by speaking slowly, clearly and simply.

 

-         Focus on single words: emphasize individual words and simple phrases commonly used. Pause to give baby plenty of time to decipher the words before moving on to something else.

 

-         Downplay pronouns: stick to using ‘mummy’, ‘daddy’ and baby’s name instead of I, me or you.

 

-         Emphasize imitation: respond and imitate baby by saying baba, dada or mama. This will teach baby to imitate your words without prompting.

 

-         Talk it up: talk to your baby about everything as you go about your day together.

 

-         Build a repertoire of songs and rhymes: baby loves the repetition and she learns from it.

 

-         Use books: simple rhyme books with vivid pictures get your baby’s attention.

 

-         Wait for a response: baby will often have a response to what you say.