Infancy is a vitally important time for language development in children. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders reports the first three years of a child's life is the most active time for speech and language development. Infants first learn to communicate is by associating crying with responses from their caregivers. Babies meet many language milestones in their first year, but their parents' involvement -- or lack thereof -- can have significant effects on their development.
Language Milestones
Beyond those first communicative cries, infants start to recognize the sound of their caregivers' voices. They then start making sense of the sounds associated with their family's language. Infants at age 6 months should have a grasp on the basic sounds that compose words, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. In the last few months of their first year, babies should understand simple words or commands commonly used with them. They attempt to say the words they hear and by their first birthday should be able to say one to two words.
How Language Develops
Infants' maturing brains work to sort out the sounds they hear, picking up on certain patterns to help them understand language, according to research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison released in February 2003. Dr. Jenny Saffran, director of the institution's Infant Learning Lab, found that younger infants focus on sounds that are likely to occur together. As they get older, babies pick up on the emphasis put on certain syllables to help them identify word boundaries.Saffran's research also revealed that infants can make sense of the order of words by their first birthday.
Negative Impacts
An impressive body of research associates poorer language development with a lack of maternal sensitivity or responsiveness, according to Nancy J. Cohen in the 2001 book, "Language Impairment and Psychopathology in Infants, Children and Adolescents." A June 2010 study in "Child Abuse & Neglect" supports this link as well, finding that language delay prevalence is higher in severely neglected infants. Environmental noise also affects language development negatively, according to findings published in the May/June 2005 issue of "Child Development." The Purdue University researchers behind the study found that infants easily lose focus on speech when they also hear noise, such as television, at the same volume. They liken this experience to what hearing-impaired older adults go through at a noisy party.
Improving Language Development
The 2005 study out of Purdue highlighted the importance of infants being able to see the person who is speaking to them; babies use facial movements to help judge word boundaries. Parents can also support their child's language development by engaging in shared reading, a study released the same year in "Applied Developmental Psychology" showed. Shared reading with infants gets them involved in the activity; the adult, for instance, may point out and label images in the book. The study's authors found that taking part in this activity supports language development in babies 12 and 16 months old. Engaging in shared reading with babies as young as 4 months old may help provide a foundation for later language capabilities.
References
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; Speech and Language Developmental Milestones; September 2010
- EurekAlert!; Infants May Offer Clues to Language Development; February 2003
- "Language Impairment and Psychopathology in Infants, Children and Adolescents"; Nancy J. Cohen; 2001
- "Child Abuse & Neglect"; Language Delay in Severely Neglected Children: A Cumulative or Specific Effect of Risk Factors?; A. Sylvestre, C. Merette; June 2010
- Perdue University News; Research: Noise, Visual Cues Affect Infants' Language Development; Amy Patterson Neubert; June 2005
- Infant-Toddler Specialists of Indiana; Effects of Shared Parent-Infant Book Reading on Early Language Acquisition; Mary Cockburn; October 2007
