7 Top Ways to Support Speech & Language Development | Sensitive Periods
/“The development of language is part of the development of the personality, for words are the natural means of expressing thoughts and establishing understanding between people.”
The Oxford Dictionary has over 170,000 words in current use in the English language. Thank goodness babies come into this world with brains wired to absorb information. That’s no small task to expect of a newcomer to this world.
From birth to about six years of age, a child goes through a sensitive period for language. This broad period of learning can be broken down into smaller growth, into phases which would be familiar to most parents.
Pre-Verbal (birth - 7 months)
The youngest children may not be verbal, but their brains are almost instantly at work developing the foundational skills to build vocabulary.
While maybe slightly less noticeable than a child’s first word, every coo or mouth formation he makes is building up to the eventual development of his speech. There’s a beautiful give and take between an infant and his caregivers during this phase.
The infant will - through various means - attempt to vocalize his needs, and the adult tries to interpret and meet these needs. The most obvious of these methods the child initially uses is crying.
Other signs of verbal skills being built in an infant’s brain are:
💬 visual tracking of noises and speech
💬 noise-exchange and turn-taking
💬 emotional expression and response to communication
💬 grunts, squeaks, coos, and babbles
💬 mimicking
All of these signs and more are indicators of a child leading up to a readiness to communicate in a more identifiable way.
Verbal (7 months - 3 years)
At this stage, a child’s progress toward speaking becomes much more obvious. Parents excitedly record every sound as they anxiously wait to see who’s name will be said first: mama or dada.
Before a child’s first year, he will undoubtedly be forming sounds that more closely resemble actual words. These sounds are largely practice and experimental for him. While he is able to mimic sounds of words, he is still developing his ability to form them intentionally on his own.
After about one year old, and especially taking off between 1.5 and two years of age, his language will go through an explosion of growth.
This initial language boom will be witness to a child’s development of words with primarily hard consonant sounds. While he will attempt many words beyond just these, his hard consonant sounds will be the clearest and most accurate.
Written Language
Children (as well as adults) continue to grow their vocabulary throughout life. These first six years, however, are the absorbent mind years...the years of nonstop growth.
After a child has a firm foundation in speech and language development, he will begin to find more interest in reading and writing, which are generally broken down into their own sensitive periods.
The sensitive period for writing is generally identified as starting sometime between 3.5 and 4.5 years old. Reading often coincides with this timeline as well (the Montessori approach often teaches these two subjects in tandem), but with a slightly wider window than writing, at about 3 to 5.5 years old.
Ways to Support a Child’s Language Development
While infants come into this world wired to learn language, there are definite ways adults can support this growth as well as capitalize on a child’s sensitive periods for learning this with ease.
🗣 READ, READ READ!! It really can’t be emphasized enough. This is the single best way to help your child on his journey toward language and vocabulary development.
🗣 Sing to and with your child.
🗣 Have conversations with your child. In the earliest months of your child’s life, it might feel silly. But talking to and with your child helps him understand conversation patterns and exposes him to a wide vocabulary.
🗣 Repeat an infant’s sounds. Repeating what an infant and small child says is a way of showing he’s been heard. It motivates him to keep trying more sounds as well as start to recognize the back-and-forth of conversation.
🗣 Name items. In the earliest months, this will be one-sided. But soon your child will ask the names of everything. Give him specific names (Elm tree, Robin bird, car muffler, etc.). The absorbent mind years might just surprise you with what vocabulary he retains.
🗣 Model looking up unfamiliar words. Setting the example of lifelong learning for our children is one of the greatest gifts. If, in naming objects for your child, you don’t know a word, look it up with him.
🗣 Speak clearly, slowly, and using rich language. Baby talk isn’t conducive to a child’s language development, as tempting as it can be for adults. This goes along with the general Montessori emphasis on adult modeling. Talk how you want your child to talk.
Helping your child build strong language skills will set him up for a successful educational career and life. You’ll also be building a stronger relationship with him as you connect through exploring the world and communication together.