| If you are a parent of a young child who uses no | | | | practical in your child's daily life, and present those |
| words or just a few words, you may be | | | | frequently throughout the day. For example, for |
| interested in what drives the process that | | | | m/, you might list mom, mama, mommy, more, |
| determines your child's choice of early words. | | | | moon, me, my, mine, move, make, mad, moo. |
| One process that guides what early words are | | | | When modeling the words you have chosen, |
| used is called "selectivity." Briefly, research has | | | | prolong the /m/ so your child really detects it: |
| shown that children say words based on sounds | | | | "mmmmmore". Never "bounce" the production of |
| they can say. This selectivity tends to exist for | | | | the first sound as in: "m-m-m-more". I often hear |
| children up through approximately the first 50 | | | | parents trying this, and I have never found it to |
| words. In typical development it disappears around | | | | work for children--each burst of the sound is still |
| 22 months of age, on average. This process | | | | too fleeting, and producing a sound by itself |
| enables a child to go from pre-speech sound | | | | doesn't help a child slide the sound into the next |
| making to word use--it's a word-learning device or | | | | sound, usually a vowel sound. Hold onto the sound |
| mechanism. | | | | and stretch it out to make it last longer, and then |
| So, if a child babbles the /b/ sound a lot, he is | | | | flow right into the rest of the word: "Mmmmama." |
| more likely to produce words that start with the | | | | If your child is not very vocal at all, then be sure |
| b/ sound. Similarly, if the child babbles the /d/ | | | | to make a lot of "bare" sounds in play and other |
| sound a lot--she will be more likely to try to say | | | | interactions throughout the day. For example, |
| words that start with /d/. "Chance" is operating | | | | when stacking up blocks, you can just say, |
| here--certain sounds will occur in babbling based on | | | | "buh...buh...buh..." as you stack the blocks, as you |
| chance. A child will produce /b/, /m/, /d/ or some | | | | touch each one as though "counting" it, as you |
| other sounds as "first sounds" and then begin to | | | | knock each one off the tower, or as you put |
| build a vocabulary from there. | | | | each one on his head-for him to tip off his head |
| For those of you reading whose children say | | | | with glee! |
| fewer than 50 single words, listen for specific | | | | Of course, keep regular language modeling going |
| sounds your child makes and then create a list of | | | | on as you play and interact, but provide a lot of |
| about 10 words that start with that sound. Then | | | | exposure to isolated speech sounds, too, to help |
| choose about 5 words from your list that are | | | | your child build a repertoire of sounds. |