The moment your baby is born he/she will be starting to develop skills to communicate. Communication, talking and listening are life skills and you can make a difference in the way you interact with your child.
Think about the following
• Spend time with your baby/child talking, relaxing and sharing books together or singing nursery rhymes and other childhood songs. Young children love repetition and the dynamic tonal qualities of music and rhyme.
They will learn to relate books and songs with enjoyment, and gradually learn new words and meanings.
Children very often like books repeated time and time again – this is fine, do read them again as your child will learn to make predictions and that stories have a sequence of events. This will helps them when they start to read and write.
• Comment and show an interest on what your child is doing e.g. “you’re enjoying building a tower”. Acknowledge your child’s thoughts and ideas rather than imposing your agenda, and use “I wonder” questions, which mean you’re thinking things through together, finding solutions to problems, and working things out which will develop their confidence in problem solving.
• Help your child to focus on words in the household, by cutting down irrelevant noise. Try turning the television off when no-one is watching it.
• Responding to any attempts that your child makes to communicate e.g. Show him that you are listening when he is talking to you; use eye contact, and face your child. Repeat back the word that you have heard, even if the child's attempt at it is not quite clear. So, if your child says “do” when he sees a dog, you can say “Yes, dog.”
Tamara & Amélia