Ensure that you have read the preceding part of this article, Language development after one-year-old.

When to worry about your little one’s language?

• If you notice signs that raise questions, trust yourself as a parent.
• If your child doesn’t respond to sounds.
• If he doesn’t smile or emit any sound when awake.
• If he doesn’t sustain your gaze.
• If he doesn’t babble at 4 months.
• If he remains indifferent to other people.
• If he doesn’t react when you talk to him.
• If he doesn’t point at anything between 7 and 12 months.
• If he doesn’t react to his name at 12 months.

When to seek help?

Language development in a young child includes comprehension of intonation, gestures, words and sentences in many aspects, namely gazes, gestures, sounds, words and sentences. This enables him to respond to a range of intentions (ask, express satisfaction or discomfort, protest, etc.).

Prior to the oral expression stage, the child reacts to noises, sounds of the voice, objects and people. He imitates gestures and is interested in his environment.

If any of these events is missing, it is recommended to take advice from a speech therapist to assess the situation, and obtain suggestions for actions that will promote language development in your child. As parents, you are his best guides. Often learning some effective early language stimulation strategies will be enough to open the way to oral communication. Early intervention makes all the difference!

As you can see, an infant isn’t a passive human being in terms of language. In fact, he is a whole person, completely committed to active learning of his mother tongue from birth.

At present, we ignore the full linguistic functioning of a child (even an adult). However, we know that the basis of language is acquired from the first year of life. Hence the importance of encouraging, stimulating and maximizing children’s language development. Here are tips and astuces : How to help your baby’s language from birth to one-year-old?

For further information, please watch the video broadcast live with speech therapist Johanne Bédard on Orthophony: Stimulate language up to one-year-old.

I hope that this will help you and guide you in your questions as parents.

Back to you soon,

Marie
The Baby Expert