Pre-linguistic Skills

There are many skills your baby needs to develop before they will speak their first true word. These skills develop during the first year and many children who begin therapy due to delays in their language development may have not acquired these skills or acquired them later than expected.

1

Eye contact- we have talked about the importance of eye contact before and as you can imagine, eye contact is one of the first pre-linguistic skills to emerge. Babies start making eye contact around 6-8 weeks of age. It is a precursor skill to joint attention (see below). Research has shown that eye contact helps your baby gather information, relate to voices and people, and aids in beginning comprehension. Research has even shown eye contact to sync your brainwaves with your baby!

2

Responding- around 2 months, babies start to respond to facial expressions by smiling at you when you smile at them. By 3-4 months of age, laughing and squealing emerge to show delight in your actions. Your baby is starting to understand that their reactions mean something!

3

Purposeful noises- babies begin to babble and coo with intention around the age of 4 months. It is at this time when babies start to understand the link between sounds used with intention results in needs being met. The baby has essentially made the connection of “when I make this sound, Mommy/Daddy smiles at me and l like Mommy/Daddy smiling at me. I’ll do this more.”

4

Turn-taking- it is also around 4 months that babies begin turn-taking with their caregivers. You babble at your baby and your baby babbles back! While no true words are being used yet, this is teaching the baby how language (and conversations) work.

5

Imitation- around 6 months of age is when a baby will begin to imitate what a caregiver is saying or doing. For example, when you were turn taking with your baby, you might have been saying “ma ma ma” but your baby might have been making a mish-mash of sounds and coos. Around 6 months is when you can start to expect your baby to repeat what you say. You say “ma ma ma” and they say “ma ma ma ma ma ma.” This is also when you can expect your baby to start using purposeful gestures (see below).

6

Joint/Shared attention- this is when you and your baby are both interacting with, for example, the same toy. Joint attention is typically achieved by your baby looking at you, looking back at the toy, and then looking at you. It is the unspoken version of “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?!” Joint attention is a foundational skill for understanding that language can be used to engage with others and the environment. Joint attention should emerge around 9 months of age.

About the Author

Janene Besch

Director/Speech-Language Pathologist

Janene Besch, née Martin, holds a Master's degree in Speech Language and Hearing Sciences from San Diego State University and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of California at San Diego. Janene is a member of the American Academy of Private Practice in Speech Pathology
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