What really matters-  Exchanges around Language Development- Babbling and Labeling Objects. I noticed that during our exchanges and explorations Whit was revealing some pretty important language foundations she was working on. For expressive language, she seemed to be babbling alot more-- increasing her range of the types of sounds she could and would make. She was learning to control the physical structures in her mouth to a much greater extent and can now use consonants and vowels better controlling the sounds she makes.

Although Whit certainly wasn’t saying any words in her babble, she seemed to understand quite a number of words I was saying. Her and all babies receptive language is leaps ahead of her ability to express words. When we say “Bathtime” she gets it. When we say “Walk or Let’s go out” she gets it and gives us a big grin.  As research suggests, She was clearly increasing her repertoire of "receptive" language (language that she understands) and demonstrated this by becoming excited over words that she associated with enjoyable activities and objects. So labeling stuff is really important.

(read more about Dev Focus)

How to put it into practice-

Babbling with Whit is a ball and I would vary the consonants instead of da, da, da vary it to ba, ba, ba and see if she would follow. If driving I would even make all the sounds of the animals I saw to see if I could get some “conversation” going.  It is exciting to

watch how babbling sounds go from repetitive (da, da) to non repetitive (da, dy, da) to more like "real" language over this period.

For receptive language, an easy thing to do is explicitly labeling the activities and objects that she was most interested in. Whenever we started a familiar routine (wake-up time, changing, eating, bathing, naptime, playtime, bedtime, shopping, driving, walking in carriage etc.) we used consistent language to prepare Whit for the event. We did the same for objects.

Definitely do not overdo it. Less is more. Focus in on what your baby is interested in and just label that. Trying to cover everything will just confuse her.

Why-

Language foundations are not about memorizing the ABCs.