According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, infants and young children have unique potential to learn language. The institute points to increasing evidence that an infant's developing brain represents a critical period for absorbing language. At a later age and growth stage, language learning becomes increasingly difficult. You can boost your infant's language development with stimulating games and activities.
Reading
So your baby likes to chew on board books or toss them across the room. Even if your baby does not appear interested in the story, reading to her still has great potential to boost infant language development. The Mayo Clinic recommends encouraging young children in their speech development by reading together. Patterned books, rhyming books, nursery rhymes, books with songs and storytelling all qualify.
Multimodal Activities
Educational researcher Howard Gardner developed the philosophy of multiple intelligences. He argues that children have innate intelligences and that parents and educators can use diverse activities to address them. Draw upon an infant's linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences to encourage speech and language. Try combining songs with movements, such as the "Eensy Weensy Spider," "Where is Thumbkin," "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and "Pat-a-Cake." Use puppets to tell stories or show your baby photographs and artwork and invent a story about them.
Conversation
According to Claudia Quigg, the executive director for Baby TALK, conversation is the most valuable language-development activity. Adults should talk out loud informally to accompany daily routines such as making breakfast, washing the dishes, playing with toys, walking to the bus stop, shopping for groceries and taking a bath. The give and take of conversation makes a far greater impact on babies' language development than using flashcards or other tools. The repetitive nature of daily routines also means that infants receive key vocabulary reinforcement from day to day.
