As a speech-language pathologist who has worked with a lot of babies before they turn one, I often have people ask me–“what do you do with a baby? They’re not talking.”
Baby's First Articulation: Babbling
Babbling, when babies begin to produce consonants in strings of consonants and vowels, is a huge milestone in speech and language development. Typically, we see this skill begin to emerge around 4 to 6 months of age. For babies at risk for speech or language impairment, teaching caregivers to engage in babbling play is a great approach to help baby master early sounds and add new ones as well, simply by babbling with them.
Articulation Therapy: Distinguishing phonemic sound contrasts
Research has also suggested that babies, and later even toddlers, learn to distinguish phonemic sound contrasts by first experimenting with different articulatory movements at word level, to try and figure out how to say the word as a whole unit. We can help them try new words and give them opportunities for this practice when they’ve been a little slow to experiment on their own.
Leveling Up Baby's Articulation Therapy: Imitating consonant sounds
What if the baby is struggling with imitating consonant sounds? You can still encourage eye contact to facilitate that awareness of needing to request from you as a communication partner. Also, remember that sound development is a process of babies and toddlers trying out different articulation movements for different words until they’ve figured out what 'works'—so praising the attempt helps to reinforce their learning, even when the production was far away from the adult target.
Conclusion
As with all things baby or toddler, understand that starting to see these skills develop in a baby with a speech and language development delay will take time and changes will happen on baby’s own schedule. It’s also important to remember that not saying words, or not knowing what words mean, doesn’t mean that little ones are having problems thinking.