Babies And Nonverbal Communication

They enjoy playing and show it by smiling and squealing with delight. They are able to focus on an object and explore it if it seems interesting. Babies also start to show us that they understand a little of what we are saying and try to communicate with us.

basic skill and the only way a baby has to communicate, as a teenager spoken words are often

When babies are born they only respond to light and the voice of their main carer. As babies grow they become more interested in what is going on around them starting to react to more things, for example smile back when being smiled at. At 8 months their brain starts to develop dramatically and they will start to respond when in different environments. Babies explore toys by touching and tasting them mostly, but by the age of 12 months they should be able to use single words and respond to a simple request, such as can you get me a book? While

This is because speech production trails behind cognitive ability in the first years of life. Baby sign language proponents say that this gap between wanting to communicate and being unable to do so leads to tantrums and a lot of frustration. However, since hand-eye coordination comes ahead of verbal ability, infants are able to learn and apply simple signs for words such as 'milk,' 'more,' 'play,' 'eat,' 'sleep' and others before they can actually say the words.

In the initial few months babies will recognise familiar voices and faces, they will try to 'people please' and bay for attention by performing for their audience through laughter and giggles. They will enjoy playing games with others such as peek a boo.

An infant’s first utterances come in the form of babbling. These consonant-vowel syllable vocalizations replace single phoneme, primary vowel, vocalizations. Around the ages of 4 to 6 months or so, children in all cultures begin to babble. Babbling is the beginning stage of acquiring language; when children begin generating sequences of vowels and consonants if they are acquiring spoken language, or producing hand gestures if they are acquiring signed language. (Mihalicek & Wilson, 2011, p. 323) “Babbling has a social element and an infant will vary the volume, pitch, and rate of babbling to attract attention.” (Owens Jr, 2016, p. 92). As an infant matures the babbling they produce will develop into longer sequences and extended individual sounds. Vedrana Mihalicek and Christin Wilson in Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics state that “Some linguists assume that babies babble to practice some muscle coordination needed to produce language” (p. 323). One would be correct in assuming this as an infant’s tongue is relatively larger compared to the size of the oral cavity.

It is believed that babies develop language when they are in the utero and it continues throughout their lifetime. By twelve weeks old, babies may register the sounds they can hear and at the same time make basic visual, auditory and tactile mind maps (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). This allows the infant to turn towards any familiar sounds and noises. Babies begin to communicate with people around them quite quickly. By two months old, babies begin to make ‘cooing’ and other noises; this indicates the phonological component of language development. By six to nine months babies begin to experience with a mixture of sounds, and often you will hear a baby babbling. Babbling development is similar across many different languages and even hearing impaired babies will go through this stage. They may copy the sounds they are introduced too or beginning to recognize familiar

At 1 year, babies are able to sit up and feed themselves using fingers. They also know what they like and do not like, food that they don’t like usually ends up on the floor. Babies are now able to understand more of what is going on and communicate with long strings of babble.

At the age of 6-11 months babies begin to babble such things such as mama. Babies at this age often try to communicate by actions or gestures and tries to repeat simple sounds that are used a lot around them.

Next, his language is still developing at this point. I showed him a stuffed animal dog and asked him if he could identify it and tell me what it is. The infant gazed at it and responded “woof,woof,woof!” He responded by what the dog sounds like. Secondly, I asked him to point out his body parts. For example, his ears, eyes and belly button. That moment I said belly button he pointed at it. He was able to repeat names and his toys that he owned. As I began to speak in long-complex sentences he stared at me for a second and then looked away and started doing something else.

The babies communicate using pictures and emotional feelings to the others but is hard for them to communicate in this manner so they try to use their linguistic abilities.

| * Repetitive play as the baby enjoys doing something over and over again * Crying if they cannot see their parent or carer * Maybe shy around strangers

Whether or not babies communicate these sounds as a reflex to what they are feeling or for their needs is not known, but the studies have shown that when an adult reacts and fulfils the babies

To put it another way, it is not only important to talk to your babies but to also connect the words you use to the world around them.

Once the child has began its basics of language acquisition it then requires a sufficient and constant input from other more advanced language users (Adults) in order to grasp and work out the regularities of that language. There are also Pre—language stages. These pre-linguistic sounds which are made in the early stages in the Childs language acquisition are simply called ‘cooing’ and ‘babbling’. By roughly 4 to 6 months of age babies start to make many more