Related videos from Parenting:

Related Articles:

• Developmental Milestones - Your Baby's First Six Mo...
• Breastfeeding and Starting Solid Foods
• Your Six Month Old
• Starting Solid Foods
• Starting Solid Foods

Transcript:

Understanding Infant Speech Development

Hi, I am Kathy Moore for About.com Parenting. Making sounds and forming speech are important milestones for infants. This program explores normal speech patterns and what parents can do to help infants develop speech and language skills.

Encourage Speech Development

I asked Annie Kline, a speech pathologist, what parents can do to encourage speech development.

Annie Kline: The best thing any parent can do is talk to your child, read out loud with your child, and model correct language structures and speech patterns.

Early Speech Development

Before babies can talk, there are a lot of things going on that they are learning, and there are a lot of things they can understand before they can make sounds or verbalize what they are understanding.

Their first cooing starts by 2 months, 2 to 3 months old.

Speech Development at 6 to 9 Months

At 6 months is when babies start making different sounds, maybe the mama or papa "p" sounds.

At the age of 6 to 9 months, babies should be making some sounds starting to respond to their name.

Use Sign Language to Communicate

At 6 to 9 months, they may start to understand when you say it is time to eat. When you are getting the high chair or getting them in the high chair, they are starting to understand the routine, familiar activities.

That is when sign language is helpful often too to start using sign language, because they are understanding and can see that gesture maybe for milk and can see that is it very concrete.

Help Build Language and Speech Skills

Kathy Moore: Annie says even with infants, parents can do a lot to help build language and speech skills.

Annie Kline: With a baby, it is important to keep your sentences short and simple. If your baby is saying 'ball,' you could say 'yes, ball, big ball, or look at the ball.' You are repeating at your baby's level saying 'ball,' but adding more information for your child.

Kathy Moore: Once your baby starts on the road to talking, it is amazing how fast they pick up new sounds and words.

Thanks for watching. To learn more visit us on the Web at parenting.about.com.