To speak or not to speak that is the question?

My sister always tells a joke of parents who were worried because their three year old son did not talk, after taking him to numerous therapists and test they were told there was nothing wrong with his development. Leaving it there the parents were startled when the boy pipped up at dinner and asked in fluent speech and in full sentence to pass the salt. The parent perplexed that through the worries and concerns they had the boy said nothing, The boy replied: "up to now there was no reason for me to speak as you have done everything to my liking,"

A lot of parents are in similar scenarios they are worried that their child is not on par with speech development and thus also unsure when they should start to worry.

Before your child can say his first word there are a number of phases through which communication  development needs to go. Many parents say that within the first few weeks they are able to tell their baby's crying from other babies. This is the start of the road to communication. In the first month your baby makes use of reflex actions to make you aware of her needs, whether it is hunger, thirst, looking for comfort. You have no idea what the problem is and run through a list of basic needs to see which one was the problem. It is all very trial and error.

From the second month you would be able to tell the sounds your baby makes apart based on the specific need. In most circumstances a mother would be able to tell you which cry means what. 

At six months the cooing and babbling  stage starts, now baby will make noises when he is unhappy or excited. Most of the babbling consist out of repetitive sounds da-da-da-da or ma-ma-ma-ma; this babbling occurs when baby is happy or left alone.

It is interesting to note that deaf babies also develop speech up to this phase, they however loose interest after a while as they are not able to hear themselves. It seems as though congenital mechanisms play a role in the development of the early cooing and babbling stage.

Researchers have shown that baby Zebra Finches babble sing yet when they are fully grown they use completely different brain waves to sing properly. These birds thus have two separate brainwaves for different “speech” development phases. It was also interesting that when a grown finch's brainwaves for grown-up speech was blocked, they reverted to the baby babbling. The first thus takes over if anything happens to the second.

Researchers explain that this might explain some childish behaviour in people and birds as this explains that you could revert to an earlier stage of development due to blocked or hurt brainwaves or cells.

From seven to eight months your baby will start to repeat sounds and words, these in most cases will be faulty and totally random yet this is a important phase of speech development.

During the next couple of months the same behaviour will take place with the repetition becoming more correct and intentional.

From one year onwards your baby will start saying recognisable words, there are an intentional effort to communicate. This speech consist of single words that convey complete sentences. The word “mommy”, could mean “I am hungry”, or “I want my mum”,

During the next phase your child will start using sentences. This transition is not quick and encompasses a number of additional phases. It is important to note that each child develop at their own pace and that as that  the below timings are just an indication. 

• From 18-20 months your child will communicate in telegraph fashion – baby hungry, there will be a central word which in most cases would be an action or need.
• At around 28 months your child will start adding more words to their sentences, and the beginning of  sentence construction will start taking shape. Words will be used to denote gender and time.
• Simple sentences can now be constructed. Questions and negatives are also now included in their communication. (Around 38 months).
• In phase 4 & 5 there will be more refinement of sentences, and more complex grammar will be incorporated. By the age of 5 your child will be able to correct grammatical errors

At the age of two your child should have a vocabulary of 300 words, at three a thousand. Between three and five you child add 50 words a month to their vocabulary; this means that by age 5 your child has a 2000 word vocabulary; and by the age of seven; 3000 words.

Sources:
Babavoeltjies babbel voordat hulle sing. Elsabe Brits - Die Burger bladsy 5 Saterdag 3 Mei 2008
Louw, D.A. 1990. Menslike ontwikkeling. Tweede uitgawe. Pretoria: HAUM – Tersiêr.