Doctors, speech therapists and psychologists are struggling with the question of why so many modern children are lagging behind in speech development. Either the influence of the environment, or the widespread use of tablets and smartphones and watching TV almost from birth ... One way or another, there is a problem. Many children lag behind in the development of speech. Of course, speech development is individual, but still there are approximate terms in which it fits into the norm. This may suggest how to teach your child to talk.
Pre-speech period
A newborn marks his birth with a first cry. This scream can be loud and sound right away, or it may require stimulation and turn out to be quiet and weak. This is one of the signs that doctors take into account when they evaluate the condition of the newborn on the Apgar scale. A cry is not speech yet, but a prerequisite for speech. The kid expresses his indignation and his needs with his help, and mothers learn by intonation to distinguish between cries of hunger, pain or desire to receive attention. In general, the entire first year is a pre-speech period. Screams are increasingly enriched by different shades of intonation, along with a loud and impatient cry of an indignant baby in his "repertoire" appear more quiet, soft and varied screams. And finally, about 3 months he begins to walk.
Walking is sounds like “aha,” which can be interspersed with grunts. The baby lies on his back and it is easiest for him to pronounce sounds using the root of the tongue, so the first sounds resemble the consonants G, K, X in combination with vowels. This is a very conditional characteristic, because booming cannot be called articulate. Following the walk, babble appears. Not every parent can distinguish one and the other stage - they smoothly flow into each other. At 6 months, the children sit down and the pose is in order to start using the tip of the tongue and lips. Sounds become more diverse. And the baby picks up the syllable structure of the tongue by ear and repeating syllables sound in his babble: ma-ma-ma, la-la-la. He, as it were, trains in their utterance, then to say the first words consisting of them. By the way, many parents take these combinations of syllables as words, but far from always the baby who repeats “ba-ba-ba” calls for grandmother. So far, these sound combinations do not make sense. The word is meaningful.
Child's speech per year
It is believed that the first words appear by the year. A little earlier or a little later. Girls are slightly ahead in boys' speech development. These words can be very simple and short - “give”, “mom”, “dad”, among them there may be onomatopoeia - “meow”, “av”, can be distorted versions of the words “go” - “di”. These words appear periodically and are related to the situation. If from a year to a year and a half he just babbles, and the first words never appeared, the question of how to teach a child to speak is becoming more and more important.
Child's speech at 2 years old
At 2 years old, vocabulary all accumulates. Researchers have about 200 words in the dictionary of children of this age. Children can use simple words to denote familiar objects and use the so-called babble words - “bye-bye”, “yum-yum”. By the end of the second year, the first elementary phrases appear in the child’s speech. They are simple and short: “Mom, give”, “Dad, go!”.
Therefore, if from two years to two and a half a child does not begin to speak the first sentences, it is also a question of lag. How to teach a child to speak at 2 years old, if he does not speak at all, a speech therapist will tell you. If he is only slightly behind, you can try to develop his speech independently.
Child's speech at 3 years old
By the age of 3 the phrase becomes more complicated, prepositions, conjunctions, some case forms, singular and plural appear in the child’s speech. Of course, his speech is still very far from an adult, and many grammatical forms are not yet observed in it. And yet, the child already knows how to use the diminutive suffix (dog), uses prefixes for verbs. For example, in addition to the word “go,” in his speech there may already be such verbs as “come” and “leave”. Children usually know generalizing words, for example, that a jacket, trousers, a T-shirt are clothes. The sound pronunciation does not yet correspond to the norms of the language - the softening of the consonants, the absence of P, A and hissing is quite normal.
If the child does not speak at 3 years of age, how to teach the child to speak, an experienced speech therapist decides. Do not take risks, do not waste time, look for a specialist who is engaged in this age and specializes in inducing and developing speech in children. After all, a huge number of speech therapists are working on the correct pronunciation. This option will not suit you. First, at least some words should appear, unite in sentences, and then you can think about sounds. After all, children speak in order to convey their thoughts or emotions and the perfectly pronounced sound P does not help in any way.
4 years and older
By 4 years, sentences reach 5-6 words. Children already know how to use complex and complex sentences, and their vocabulary is enriched with adjectives. By the age of 5, they become capable of building monologues, for example, telling a story from a picture. The sound pronunciation usually returns to normal, but up to 6 years old, the incorrect pronunciation of hissing and R. is still permissible.
If the child is silent
If the baby does not use words at all, you can’t let the situation go by its own accord. Yes, there are cases when children began to speak at 4 or even 6 years old and became famous people. But there are not less, but rather more cases when a child has neuropsychiatric problems. The sooner the correction starts, the better. This should involve not only a speech therapist, but also a neurologist, psychologist, defectologist. In this case, it is possible to reduce the possible harmful consequences in time. By school age, the child will be ready for learning - among other things, writing and reading are formed on the basis of speech and are even considered a form of speech. And besides, he will not be psychologically traumatized by his lag compared with other children, because it will be overcome on time!
Anamnesis
Specialists are usually interested in whether something could harm a child. For this, an anamnesis is collected. It is important to note whether the baby had: birth injury; birth asphyxia; neuroinfection, frequent colds, flu, transferred in early childhood; traumatic brain injury in a child; mismatch with the mother on the Rh factor; little attention was paid to the child, there is a lack of communication.
Signs of Delay
How to understand that a child has a delay in speech development? The child does not address adults or does this with gestures. He utters incomprehensible sound combinations and does not try to be understood at all. In a child’s speech at 2 years old there are only babbling words and onomatopoeia. He can call different things with one babble word. The kid not only speaks poorly, but also does not understand speech well enough. For example, if you turn to him with a simple request, he will fulfill it only when the speech is accompanied by gestures. In such children, motor skills often lag behind in development . This means that they are awkward, often fall, stumble on objects. Fine motor skills can especially suffer - the coordinated work of the fingers. Therefore, the baby does not know how to take a small object with two fingers, as we do, but grabs it with his whole fist. To find out how to teach a child to talk, it is important to understand if he has other disorders.
What to look for
In addition to delayed speech development, children have other problems. If the baby speaks too quickly and confusedly, and especially if he begins to stretch and repeat sounds and syllables in the words: “mmmmmama”, “pee-pee-drink” - this may be a sign of a starting stutter. There are physiological hesitations in children's speech, but if this feature caught your eye, you need to find a speech therapist who deals with stuttering, and also contact a neurologist - because stuttering always indicates problems with the nervous system.
If a child cannot remember a simple text, does not understand it when adults read aloud, can not retell it even in the simplest words, perhaps he just did not hear it well. And this already leads to suspicion that the child has hearing problems. If you noticed that the baby does not hear soft sounds and does not notice where they are coming from, constantly turns up the volume on the TV, this is an occasion to check his hearing with ENT, as well as contact a pediatrician and a neurologist. How can one teach a child to speak without the help of specialists if he does not hear speech well!
Reasons for the delay
The reasons for the lag in speech development are different. Sometimes there are physiological prerequisites for this - a delayed or impaired development of the nervous system. This happens, especially if up to a year the child has been diagnosed with hypertonicity or PEP (perinatal encephalopathy). But the development of the child’s speech can slow down even with the excellent health of the baby. After all, speech is not a biological function, like nutrition and movement, but social, so the environment strongly influences its development:
Stress can also slow down or even halt the development of speech. If in the conditions of a child’s life there was a significant change - moving, changing the nanny, then you just need to give him time to adapt.
They speak little with him at home. Many children spend time in the company of computers and televisions, rather than loved ones. Try to gradually reduce the time devoted to gadgets, and at the same time yourself often talk with the baby.
For example, a child does not need speech. Parents already understand all his gestures and sounds made by him. How to teach a child to speak well if he does not want to? It is important to create situations so that he wakes up a desire to communicate and be understood. In this case, you need to take the baby to the playground more often, and later to send to the kindergarten, so that he needs to communicate with other people.
How to make a speech per year
How to teach a child to talk in a year? This is the right time for the first words to appear and if you help the child a little bit, you can completely push his speech to development. If his nervous system is normal, you may quickly teach your child how to talk. How to do it? The kid is ready for the appearance of words, you should help him a little. Talk to him more often. And when the baby babbles, you can join and repeat the syllables after him. And you can ask your own - slowly pronounce the syllable so that the baby can look at the movements of your mouth. It is known that children learn articulation not only by ear, but also by watching speaking adults. This is one of the main tips on how to teach a small child to talk. One of the first in the speech of children appears onomatopoeia. You can try to call them. It is necessary to pay attention of the child to animals or objects that make sounds: birds squeak: pee-pee-pee, water drips: cap-drip, beetle flies: f-f-f-f. Perhaps the baby will repeat onomatopoeia after you, imitating not so much your speech as the animal.
But if the baby is older, then the situation becomes more serious. In a year and a half, the complete absence of words is already an alarming sign, and later, even more so. How to teach a child to speak in 1 5 years? Try to do the same and apply the tips described below.
How to arouse a child’s interest in speech
What to do if the child has no neurological pathology, and he just does not want to talk? How to teach a child to talk? You can try to create a situation where the child will need to say a word. For example, on the shelf are several different toys, and the baby is asking for something. No need to try to guess his desire, just ask him to say. You can offer a choice of different foods or drinks: "Do you want juice or tea?". But the child will say the word only if he can say it. It should be in his passive dictionary, that is, he knows the word, always recognizes by ear and can easily show the subject. And also it should be ready to go into his active vocabulary - the one that he uses when he speaks. So it’s not necessary to persist and bring the child to tantrums.
But you can translate the same thing into the game. For example, you can play hide and seek with several toys. The child needs to call a hidden toy to appear. It doesn’t matter how he pronounces this word, the main thing is that it sounded, for example, “zaya”, “aya” or “zya” instead of a bunny.
On a walk, it is worth paying the attention of the baby to the outside world, commenting on everything that we see around. This advice is also suitable for solving the issue of how to teach a child to talk in a year. It is important that the child sees lively interest in the adult - he can be passed on to him.
In order to teach a child to speak, as often as possible, one should read to the child fairy tales, poems and jokes available for his age. You can do this not only at night, but also during the day. For the kid to be interested, you need to show him beautiful and vivid pictures that usually accompany fairy tales in children's books, to point out all the characters with your finger: “Here is the grandfather, but the woman ..”
How to teach a child to speak at the age of 2.5 years and older, if he already speaks, but is lagging behind in development? You can try to read him a well-known rhyme or fairy tale, so that he could arrange words or endings. Your expectant silence and a look at it may well be understood as an invitation to end a sentence. After all, small children love when everything repeats and when a word suddenly disappears in a familiar joke, the kid wants to correct the lost.
Sometimes a child can be interested in talking on the phone. While he is not eager to talk live with his grandmother, talking to her on the phone can be an interesting game for him. After all, it is so exciting - there is no person nearby, but a voice is heard!
How to accumulate vocabulary
It is important to familiarize the child not only with the names of objects, but also with the actions that children and adults can perform. So in the baby’s speech, verbs will appear, and thanks to them a little later it will become possible to draw up simple sentences. Then you can teach your child to speak correctly, mastering not only the dictionary, but also the grammatical side of speech and syntax. How else can this be done?
It is necessary to talk not only about the objects themselves, but also about their purpose: “These are scissors. They cut paper. ” “Soap lies in the soap dish.” It is necessary to pay attention to the child also on the shape of objects, their size and color, for example, the "big red ball".
It is important to introduce the child to the parts of the body - first, the children show them at home according to the adult, this is possible even up to a year, and then they call themselves.
In the second year of life, if the child knows the colors by ear and shows, you can ask him to show the colors of the objects in the picture and call them.