The stages of speech development in the child
The child's ability to speak develops during various stages, as follows:
- From birth until the age of 6 months: the child can hear the sounds around him during this period, and he can release some unintelligible sounds in addition to his reliance on crying to express hunger or pain, and as he gets older, the child begins to try to speak and pronounce some letters.
- From the age of 7 months to 12 months: During this period the child can combine some letters together to pronounce some simple words, which he learns from the people around him.
- From the age of 12 months to 24 months: the child becomes able to speak, but with some difficulties in speaking and arranging sentences and phrases, the child can also use his hands to express what he wants to say.
- From the age of two to 3 years: the child becomes able to continue simple conversations with those around him, to begin to ask questions and inquiries about many matters that attract his attention.
- From the age of 3 years to 8 years: during these ages, the child can speak in a more accurate manner, in these stages the child receives his basic education in nursery and school, and thus his ability to speak increases, and the problem of stuttering is gradually eliminated.
A mother's role in helping her child to speak
A mother can teach her child to speak by following the following tips:
- Talking to the baby while changing his clothes or feeding him, explaining what you are doing while trying to use correct words; This is because the child tries to imitate what he hears from her.
- Smiling at the child, talking to him constantly, asking him what he wants, and not relying solely on pointing by hand.
- Trying to understand what the child wants to say spontaneously, and reading some stories out loud.
The problem of delay in speaking in children
The child's ability to speak can be confirmed through some routine checks. Some children suffer from a problem in pronouncing some words well, while some of them suffer from a problem of speech delay as a whole, and one of the most important signs of speech delay in children is the child's failure to respond to some stimuli Like sounds, or it takes a long time to do that, as for the reasons for late speech, they are many, including the following:
- The presence of some problems in the mouth, such as the tongue or the jaw.
- Some hearing problems limit a child's ability to speak.
