{"id":2008,"date":"2010-01-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.metrokids.com\/index.php\/2010\/01\/17\/navigate-babys-language-labyrinth\/"},"modified":"2010-01-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-17T00:00:00","slug":"navigate-babys-language-labyrinth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metrokids.com\/navigate-babys-language-labyrinth\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigate Baby's Language Labyrinth"},"content":{"rendered":"
“A, B, C, Z!” exclaimed our 2-year-old, Rachel, as she pointed at a sweatshirt. My wife and I exchanged a surprised glance as we realized that our daughter had somehow grasped the concept of symbols even though she had uttered the wrong letter.<\/p>\n
Like many parents, we’re puzzled by the dense, maze-like experience called language learning. Parents can more easily foster language acquisition when they understand how kids learn to speak and when there might be signs of speech delay.<\/p>\n
Babies interact with others by listening to adult speech and by trying to identify and understand the specific properties of their native language. The social aspect of language emerges immediately as babies begin listening to sounds such as “r” and “l.” Initially, these sounds are simply acoustic, something the baby hears without rhyme or reason.<\/p>\n
As they grow, babies acquire the ability to organize different sounds into categories that become building blocks for words. These sound categories are language-specific.<\/p>\n
For example, “r” and “l” are important categories in English but are meaningless in Mandarin Chinese. An English-speaking baby older than 11 months would be able to distinguish “ray” from “lay,” while a Mandarin-speaking baby would not.<\/p>\n
“Babies subconsciously count the number of times a phonetic unit (a basic sound) is used in the language they hear,” explains Paul Yoder, PhD, a language expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.<\/p>\n
Dr. Yoder says that babies track sounds best when listening to real people talk,<\/strong> and do not learn nearly as well from audio or video recordings. “There is something about social interaction that is important. It’s not just all cognitive. There is a social element even at the very, very early stages of language acquisition.”<\/p>\n Milestones are one way to monitor a child’s language development, but use them cautiously, advises Jenny Saffran, PhD, a language acquisition expert at the University of Wisconsin. Take the first word at the 12-month milestone, for example. “I guess the best way to put it is, if you say that the first word comes at 12 months, that means that for half the babies, the first word comes before 12 months and for half the babies it comes after 12 months. So both of those are typical,” she says.<\/p>\n Parents may become concerned or upset if their child does not hit a particular milestone on time. “Milestones can be misleading, I think, which is why it’s nice to focus on what your baby understands more than what your baby is saying<\/strong>,” says Dr. Saffran.<\/p>\n She illustrates the point with an example: Recently, she taught her 11-month-old child the difference between the mother’s name and the nanny’s name by saying “Give mommy five, give Jane five.” The child was able to do it. If Saffran were tied to milestones, she might have overlooked the child’s ability to understand which name was associated with each person.<\/p>\nUse Milestones Cautiously<\/h3>\n
Delayed Development<\/h3>\n