Your Child: Developing Speech

The day your child says their first word is a day you'll remember forever. Not only is it the start of a very short, vital and steep learning curve for the child, but also the start of hard work and satisfaction when you reach the end. Within the first year your baby will develop babbling and what may seem random patterns of noises into one complete word. From their first word until they reach 36 months, your child will develop full sentences conveying their opinions and needs. A scary thought!

Within this time your child will need your support as much as possible. At the beginning you might hear a load of  gobbledegook which you will struggle to understand. The most common mistakes are categorised  as the following:

• Deletion, such as 'do' for 'dog' and 'cu' for 'cup'.
• Substitution, such as 'pip' for 'ship'.
• Addition, such as 'doggie' (an all time fave)
• Assimilation, such as 'gog' for 'dog'.
• Reduplication (try saying that after swinging a few back), such as 'dada' and 'mama' (so cute!)
• Constant cluster reductions (errr whaa?!?) so 'pider' for 'spider'
•  and Deletion of unstressed syllables, such as 'nana' for 'banana'.

Katherine Nelson (1973) identified four categories for a child's first words; these are - naming (things or people), actions/events, describing things and personal words. Other mistakes such as overextending a word's meaning. This can be anything from labeling the cat as a dog (60%), calling an orange, apple or lemons a ball (15%) or saying 'duck' whilst looking at an empty pond (25%).

After your child establishes their vocab and grammar correctly (so saying 'ran' instead of 'runned'), questions, negatives and pronouns soon follow. 'Where is ball?', 'I no want', 'Tom play'. So from babbling and saying nothing with any meaning at the start of the year you child will be telling you that the dog is gone and there's balls in your fruit bowl.

Enough about the child, where do you come into this? As a parent studies have shown that your language changes. CDS or Child-directed speech is the various speech patterns you use when communicating with young children, which usually involves simplified vocabulary, melodic pitch, repetitive questioning, and a slow or deliberate tempo. So you'll be using a higher pitch than normal, and speak mainly in the present tense (until your child starts exploring future and past tenses in which case you'll start correcting them). Even you will be using one-word utterances to match your child's development, and 'din-dins' with simply yes/ no questions will be your most common dialogue.

After establishing their speech, your child will be introduced to reading. Even before you send them to their first year in school you should be reading bed time stories to your child. Asking them to point to pictures and where certain characters are will be vital to their reading development. A little warning: be prepared to read the same story to your child over and over and over and over and over and over...

The End.

It dawned on me that my boyfriend and I weren't getting on as I had originally hoped. It the same process I had gone through with my last boyfriend, and to be honest I'm getting tired of listing/ hearing the same reasons. The top one was my strict parents. No one should have cruel parents such as my own who never let their child go anywhere without a 'valid' reason. Not allowing the kid to fall in love, or fall for someone, and ban them from having a boyfriend/girlfriend. This was my trouble. The reason why I was never allowed out to see my man, he lived about 20 miles away and I had recently met him so my parents hadn't heard much of him.

The second reason was, regrettably, another guy I had known for a couple of years. I didn't want this guy to interfere with my relationship, but I had to give in to my childish ways. For some reason, I can't establish what at this present time, I can't get my head over my stupid obsession with this guy. He had ruined my last relationship and now he ruined this one. He knows it alright, but I have no idea what he truly thinks of it.

The third reason would be the timing. We had planned the next year out together, which was why it took me so long to make the decision of ending it. We were going to go to the same uni, staying in the same flat and going back home at the same times. It was nicely planned and all we had in between now and then was the wait, our performance, and booking the accommodation. I didn't want to throw such security and lovely near future away just like a pebble. Yet, somehow I managed to persuade myself that it wasn't fair on my boyfriend. Living with false hope that he completely had me, like he wanted, wished for and needed.

So I made the decision to call it a day. Hopefully we'll stay friends, even still go to the uni we planned and lived the next year like we had always hoped. Only time will tell. The main thing I lost was my motivation to keep going, to reach the next level, waking up in the morning and feeling that warmth inside me, going to sleep with a smile on my face. The most important thing I've lost is that gem we all look for. Like a needle in a haystack. I threw it back and maybe never find it again. But the time I spend searching for it, once again, will be the time I need to get over the other guy and get my head clear and my priorities straight. He's probably reading this, telling himself what a bitch I am, and so are others reading this. It's not a good feeling. Having to tell someone that the life they've just grown to know has to end. Telling them that the thing that's keeping them going, keeping them smiling has vanished. It's even worse when you find yourself telling them that it's the stone you found in the rubble that you're tied to admire. I told him I'm sorry. I said 'night' to him. I left him two kisses. What he's doing now? I have no idea.