Speech Development
An amazing experience as a parent or caretaker is the highly anticipated “speech” milestone. I can’t help but smile and get all teary-eyed as I think about my son’s first spoken word. His first word was “Mama.” It was. Honest to God. It wasn’t Dada, it was Mama.
Mama, mama, mama!! Woohoo! Not like I’m gloating or anything…
I know the exact date Jason said his first word, May 9, 2023, and he was 1 year and 1 month old. Does that sound early or late to you? For me, it felt late. Really, really late. I felt like he should have been able to speak a lot more than he was. My husband and I talked about this often and we had different perspectives. Joe said it wasn’t a big deal and he will talk when he was ready. I agreed to a certain extent and I felt like he was ready and has been ready. We needed to figure out how to help him talk more. As I shared in a previous blog post, my son also has a tongue and lip tie. So, I was also thinking that his physical limitations were impacting his speech development. I also remember saying “other kids his age are already talking, why isn’t he?” Nothing more reassuring than comparison, right?
I hate the comparison game between kids and yet it is something I naturally do. I see other kids doing something and think, can my son do that? When will he be able to do that? Should he already be doing that? Then I think, nah… he is doing fine. Right? He is fine and he will do X, Y, or Z when he is ready. I would love to say that I’ve figured out how to stop comparing my son to other kids with his abilities, but I haven’t. Sometimes I think it is because I, as a parent, am not doing enough or not planning far enough ahead for my son. It is something I continuously work on and deep down, I know that I am doing a lot for my son and every kid is different.
When my son said his first word, Mama, I almost couldn’t believe what I heard. It was like umm.. did I hear that? Did you mean to say that or are you doing a new babble? But he consistently said it when I was around and he started pointed to me and saying Mama. Although I had been waiting for that precious first word, it almost didn’t seem real when it actually happened. His voice sounded different to me. Instead of grunting or babbling, he articulated a word in his own voice. My husband said to me, “just wait hun, he is going to be more of a chatter box than you!” Debatable…
A few days after Jason’s first word, Mama (still bragging), he said Dada. Then it was Joe’s turn to be amazed and dumbfounded. We are on a roll now! Two words! Whohoo!! Let’s keep going with more words. More, more, more words!! Okay Elizabeth… chill out right? Nope, I’ve been waiting for this, let’s do this!
I have found some practical tips and tricks with my own twist, to fit my parenting style, to help my son’s speech development. Let me share these with you:
When I was reading with Jason, I had him sit on my lap so both of us were looking at the pages while I read. Don’t do this all the time. Mom tip – have your child sit across from you while you read so they can see your mouth make the movements when speaking. Try it out by doing a little reading time while they are in their high chair, in their own reading chair, or just sitting on the floor.
When reading, you must SLOW DOWN. It is not a race to speed through a book. You have to slow down and enunciate the words. Really give those f’s, t’s, l’s, and s’s the right enunciations. pick a couple of letters to specifically focus on for each book or even find books with similar letters in them to your child can hear the repetition.
Repetition – read the same books OVER and OVER and OVER again. You will be able to recite the words without even having to look at the pages. That is even better because then you can really focus on how you are saying the words and enunciating them so your child can watch your mouth and lips move. I personally can recite more books than I care to admit… and at times I will recite the book to my son without the actual book so he listens and watches me. It’s modified story-telling.
Try out different sounds while you do things together. Hmmm… and ummm… are great for when you are “thinking.” Those are also really easy sounds to mimic. Here is an example of how to do this – Mom: “I’m thinking about going outside but I need my shoes first. Hmmm…. Where are my shoes?” Jason: “Hmmm…” Here is another example – Mom “It’s music time, want to sing with me? La La La let’s sing!” Jason: “La La La.”
Incorporate sign language with your verbal communication. Kids can’t articulate everything with their words but can piece meal communication with you as they combine sign language and speech together. Check out my last blog on sign language to learn more.
Think about layering in infant and toddler music into your communication. Play those lovely, catchy songs on repeat and sing the words while facing your child. You can do sign language or hand motions with them so they can connect music, speech, and sign language together.
As you are considering these ideas, here is something else to be aware of – the “pressure” we put on kids to talk. How does this sound to you?
Person: “Can you say dog?”
Person: “Say dog. Say doggie.”
Person: “Jason, say dog dog.”
Person: “Come on, say dog.”
Sounds kind of pushy. Sounds like a lot of talking from the person. All of this was probably said without a pause for the child to actually try to say dog. I mean, if I was the kid, I wouldn’t want to talk either. How about some of these others questions we ask our kids: can you say hello, what color is that, can you say grandma, say goodbye, what animal is that, what sound does that make? Phew… that’s a lot of questions!
Something that has worked well for me is a method I describe as “prompt, pause, repeat OR back off.” Here are a couple examples of what this method looks like.
Example 1:
Mom: “Jason, I see a fluffy dog. Do you see it?”
Jason: “Yeah”
Mom: “Jason, you try saying dog. Dog.”
PAUSE for at least 3 to 5 seconds.
Jason: silence
Mom: “That’s okay, you can try saying Dog next time.”
Example 2:
Mom: “Jason, mama is using a fork to eat her food. I see you are using a fork too. Can you say fork? Fffforkkk.”
PAUSE for at least 3 to 5 seconds.
Jason “Foooorrr”
Mom: “Yes!! Ffffoork. Fork. Say it again!”
Jason: “Ffforr.”
Mom: “Yes!! Say the k in it too. Fffoorkkk.”
Jason: “No”
Mom: “Hahahaha! Okay. Great job buddy. You said Fork!”
I mean progress over perfection, right? The difference that I want to highlight here is giving your child space and time to respond. Kids take more time than we do to process information and to respond. We cannot expect an immediate response – their brains aren’t mature enough to give an immediate response to a new skill. When we continuously jump in or keep talking, we are not giving them space to try. We also have to recognize that kids may not WANT to say what we are asking and there is no way we can force them to. Repeating and repeating ourselves to force a response is never going to work. Many times, the person asking the repeated question will answer the question themselves because they aren’t waiting for the kid to answer. What does the kid get out of that interaction? They were repeatedly asked something, maybe didn’t know or didn’t want to answer, and then the person answered for them. What did the kid learn? That if they just wait and don’t say anything, then the adult will answer it for them. That’s not what we want.
Prompt, pause, repeat or back off. Try it out and let me know how it goes.
As my son started speaking more and more words, he would revert back to grunts, screeches, screaming, and whining. I’m told this happens and is pretty common. I was dying on the inside because this was so hard. It was so hard to hear him complain or scream when he knew how to say what he needed. Does this resonate with you? If it does, hang in there, you’ll get through it. After losing my mind and then finding it again, these are some of the things I would say to my son:
“Mama doesn’t know what you need, can you help me? Please point to or say what you need.”
“Hey Jason, I’m right here you don’t need to shout. Use your words and tell me what you need.”
“Wow! That was quite a scream! Can I scream with you too? Agghhhh!!! Okay your turn! Okay wow, I feel better. I bet you do too. Now, can you show me what you need?” (Yes, I do yell with my son when he yells from time to time. It’s pretty fun and my son thinks it’s hilarious.)
Sometimes my son will scream or even complain when he is struggling with doing something on his own. He really likes playing with playdoh but can’t quite pop those lids off. So he will try, grunt, whine, then start screaming at the playdoh container. When this happens, I ask “Jay, do you need help?” when he says “yeah,” then we say “okay I’m here to help you. When you need help just ask. Say Mama Help or Dada Help.” This took a little bit of time for him to understand but we were very consistent with it and now he asks for help when he needs it.
Over the past few weeks, since my son turned 2-years-old, he is stringing multiple words together and combining words with sign language into longer and longer sentences. My husband and I are getting better and better at deciphering some of his baby jibberish and are trying to work on proper pronunciation of words. He says 5 or 6 words in a mini sentence, the words aren’t always in the right order, and they aren’t always enunciated correctly. That’s okay. Progress over perfection. We do a lot of repeating back to him with what he is said and we repeat the words in the correct order and pronunciation. I’m sure, with time he will get it.
Jason is also at the point of making up words and that has been really interesting to decipher. Let me share a couple with you:
Ree Ree – our dog Finn
Ya Ya – our other dog Gus
Eeeeeeeee with flailing arms – Run
This season of life with my son is SO much fun. He makes me laugh every single day and is so creative with his speech and sign language. He does talk a lot and is his own little chatter box. We have great mama and baby chats. I do still have concerns about my son’s tongue and lip ties. I know that he is fine right now and I also want his speech to be understandable and productive, not a hinderance. So far though, I understand him, our family and friends understand him, and he is learning every single day. I’d say, he is doing fine!
