Fun time with baby talk: Birth to 2 Years

By: Pauline and Michael, Speech Pathology Team, Change for Life

Your baby will develop dramatically over this time in term of talking and their language.  Here are some fun ways to encourage talking and playing together.

1. Give lots of eye contact and smiling and taking an interest in their babbling and early language skills.
2. Enjoy singing action songs like nursery rhymes.
3. Read to your child. Talk about the pictures.
4. Choose books that have large colourful pictures. Ask your child, “What’s this?” and try to get him/her to point to or name objects.  Praise them for their efforts.
5. Label familiar objects for them, again, and again, using single words like ball, cup, up, down and milk. This repetition helps children associate the word with the action or object.
6. Point out different things to help them learn colours and shapes, things you see when you are out and about
7. Use gestures, like waving and pointing.
8. Pretend to have a conversation and use lots of gestures with your baby.
9. Talk about different sounds and link them with an object or context (e.g., animals going to the zoo).  It will help your baby connect the sound and the animal. Use words like “The dog says woof-woof.”
10. Add on to what your baby says. When your baby says, “Mama,” say, “Here is Mama. Mama loves you. Where is baby? Here is a baby.”
11. If your child pronounces a word wrong, be encouraging.  Acknowledge what your child has said by repeating the word back to your child correctly.
12. Play games with your child where you take turns
13. Lastly, give your child lots of attention and emotional support as responsiveness to their positive emotions helps build their confidence and learning skills