Speech development: voice training before the first word
Speech development and learning to speak start long before your baby utters the first clearly understandable word. The first step is voice development, which begins with the first cry. The archaic sounds, i.e. crying, screaming, moaning, gurgling, form the basis for speech development. Your child masters these from birth.
Communicating without words
Your baby does not need words for its first simple communication. From an early age, your baby uses gestures, facial expressions, laughter and crying to communicate with you. This nonverbal exchange is the first step in learning to speak (preverbal stage of development).
You will notice that this connection between you and your child works wonderfully after just a few weeks. You can already tell what your baby is missing by the sound of its cry: is it hungry, tired or just bored?
Before children learn to speak properly, they playfully test their voice: they try out which sounds can be produced by the interaction of lips, tip of the tongue, soft palate and back of the throat. The result is the first babbling sounds and babble. Although these sounds do not yet convey any content, they are still used for verbal interaction with the environment. Your child expresses boredom, pleasure, hunger, satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Speech development is part of mental (cognitive) development. As with every developmental step, learning to speak also proceeds at a different rate for each child. It is therefore not possible to give a general answer to the question of when children begin to speak. Moreover, the transitions between onomatopoeia and the first recognizable words are fluid.
Before your child can speak, it first learns to interpret your facial expressions and gestures. Towards the end of the first year of life, speech comprehension is developed to such an extent that your child can recognizably listen and understand individual words and instructions.
When babies start speaking their first words varies greatly. Some children are able to utter their first intelligible word at around eight months, others not until they are over a year old. Children seem to have a different focus: Some learn to speak first, others to walk first!
Baby’s first words
Baby’s first words are closely linked to his environment and everyday life. In the beginning, especially indicative expressions such as “there” or “up” are often used. In addition to social words such as “goodbye” or “hello”, it is then mainly things and people from his immediate everyday life.
Phases of language development
The child’s language development progresses month by month. The phases of language development can be observed well in the first year:
- First reactions to voices and sounds
- Sound period, first sounds (1st to 3rd month)
- Vocalization (from 3rd month spontaneously, from 6th month purposefully): The child now forms different sounds. To do this, it must move its larynx, breathing, vocal cords, lips, lower jaw and tongue in a controlled manner. This is a learning process that gradually improves. At around six months of age, vocalization is targeted – the baby “responds” to speech.
- Imitation of speech and first syllable chains such as “wawawa” (6 to 12 months)
- Baby’s first words (from 12 months)
By one year of age, most infants have mastered about 50 words. After that, language development progresses rapidly: two-year-old children already have a vocabulary of up to 200 words. By the age of five, their pronunciation is almost perfect – they rarely make grammatical mistakes. By the age of six, your child has already mastered about 6000 words.
If the individual phases of language development occur significantly delayed (more than six months later), a language development disorder may be present. As a rule, this becomes apparent during the U examinations at the pediatrician’s office.
