“My baby is still not talking at the age of 1 year old, what is the reason?” Some mothers say “my baby can call out to his mother since he was 8 months old”, this baby’s mother instantly became the “star” of the group, other parents are consulting her, learn from her, and even buy toys, buy picture books to buy the same. Many mothers are worried about how their babies will speak late. Some mothers are not worried at all and think that “your people are late in talking”. So is it a problem if your child can’t speak when he or she reaches the talking age? This also requires specific analysis. The other day in the clinic, I met a baby who is almost one and a half years old, only unconsciously shouting mommy and daddy, but nothing else, and not quite understand the words. Such a baby is already behind in language development, and may also be behind in cognition, which requires intervention. What level of language is normal for each stage of life? How can I teach my baby to speak? The language development characteristics of 0~3 year old babies 0~3 years old is the golden period for babies to learn language, parents should seize this opportunity to fully develop their children’s verbal skills. First of all, let’s understand the language ability of babies at each stage of development: 0~3 months: gradually can distinguish the voice of the mother, and make “oh, ah” sound to communicate with adults. 4~7 months: communication ability increases, baby starts to recognize the baby and often makes a, o, e sounds; at 4 months old, baby will scream happily; at 6 months old, baby will hazily make ma, da sounds. 8~12 months: Babies can make ba, ma, da sounds clearly, and most of them can pop out “baba, mama” at 8 months. 10 months old, they start to imitate adults’ speech, just like little parrots, and gradually learn to say “bye bye, clap their hands, and shake their heads to express No” and other body language. 12-18 months: babies can recognize some daily things, they can identify family members and common things such as water cups, apples, milk bottles, etc. They can say superlatives or single words, and some of them can say sentences of 4-6 words. 18-24 months: babies can use simple phrases, can say 30-50 words, can say sentences of 4-5 words, babies with strong ability can say longer sentences and use language to express their will. 24~36 months: Babies can understand most of the statements, can form sentences with 4~5 words, can say their name, age and gender, and can use the pronouns “I, you, we, you”. By the age of 36 months, babies can master some basic grammar, express themselves more clearly and can be understood by strangers, and tell simple stories. How can babies learn to speak early? Babies are born with the gift of language, so parents don’t have to worry too much about when it’s appropriate for their babies to talk. Follow the approach below to make reasonable use of your baby’s critical period of language development from 0 to 3 years old to develop your baby’s verbal potential. 1. Use the mother’s voice. The so-called mother’s accent refers to the high tone of voice, short sentences, with feelings, such as telling your baby “mommy likes you”. This is the voice your baby likes to hear the most! 2, give a response. Do not think that the baby is small, do not understand anything, let the baby play on their own, not to communicate. When the baby “oh, ah” with you, the mother should give the baby a response. If the baby does not get a response for a long time, it will not be willing to continue talking. 3, after the baby makes a sound, to be guided with. For example, at around 8 months, the baby makes the sound “ba”, although it is an unconscious pronunciation, but also to say to the baby, “Yes, this is daddy”. For older babies, when they want to drink or eat, parents should guide the baby to say it and then give satisfaction. 4, insist on parent-child reading together every day. Parent-child reading time can increase the relationship between parents and children, but also to help babies learn the good habits in the picture book, more help babies learn to pronounce. For example, when the picture book says “the bunny’s teeth hurt”, the mother can take the opportunity to ask the baby “why does the bunny’s teeth hurt?” This can guide your baby to say more words on the one hand, and let your baby know that there are worms inside your teeth if you don’t take care of them. 5, play games, so that the baby like to talk. Babies love to play, we will learn to speak with the game together, can better help them understand the world, learn more essential skills. For example, let the baby imitate you speak, you say “dog” let the baby also follow, if there are puppy toys or cards at home, when the baby said out “dog”, you can take the dog to him or let him find out for himself, which is the dog. 6, exercise the baby’s chewing ability. The baby can speak, need the support of facial muscles, so the exercise of chewing muscle is particularly important. When babies add complementary foods, from puree gradually over to crumbly, small pieces. Many parents think that pureed is easier to digest, so they often add this type of food to their babies. But when the baby eats complementary food to a certain extent, such as about 9 months need to add some meat froth, rotten porridge rotten noodles, about 1 year old to eat soft rice, steamed buns, etc., can help exercise the baby’s chewing ability. 7, bring your baby more contact with other children. Such as inviting familiar children to the home as guests, etc., take the child to the park and other babies to play games, on the one hand, can promote baby imitation skills, language skills, but also slowly develop the child’s social interaction skills. Many mothers think that babies are small and do not know anything, so they let them stay and play by themselves, while adults do their chores or play with their phones or watch TV. Inappropriate substitute parenting can also cause your baby’s language development to lag behind. Of course, in addition to these substitute parenting problems, mental retardation, hearing defects, autism, etc. can cause late speech. If your baby’s language development is not in line with the above-mentioned developmental pattern, and if he or she is lagging behind the performance of children of the same age, it is recommended that you take your baby to the hospital as soon as possible to identify the cause. In order to detect the problem early and treat it early.