Phonological awareness relates to our sensitivity and understanding of the sound structures of our oral language. It enables us to progress from our awareness of large sound units (words in sentences) to smaller sound units (phonemes in words). It also incorporates the ways in which we communicate through speech, body language and written forms.

Stage 1 – (Unborn – 1 year)

Your child will learn to recognize, differentiate and respond to both speech and non-speech sounds, start to recognize words and interpret facial expressions and body gestures. They will begin making sounds, mimic speech patterns and start to use body language to express their needs, wants and thoughts.

Research suggests that our phonological awareness begins in the womb at about 24 weeks. New born babies have a preference for their mother’s voice, as they have had an extended period of time hearing the voice before they are born, and so find it comforting. They do not understand the words, just the sound rhythm and intonation of her speech pattern; more like music.

It is suggested that reading, talking and singing to your unborn child in the same manner you would to a baby or toddler could help to begin the sound storage/recognition process. Like many parents who have their children close together (14 months in our case) the second child’s language skills seemed to develop earlier than the firsts. This may have been because the book sharing time with our first (who was about 5 months old when I fell pregnant again) and the type of language we were using stimulated our unborn second child.

So, talk to your baby even before they are born, they will not understand what you are saying but their brain is busy; starting to store sound information that will later help them to understand language and learning to speak.

Babies initially have no language preference; they respond only to the sounds and facial gestures and mouth shapes that accompany them.

Try to expose them to a greater range of sound experiences as they develop their awareness of sounds around them. The more they hear and the associations they make to those sounds (what they see, feel, experience) the greater their ability to distinguish between them. This skill becomes important later on as they begin to isolate individual words in sentences, being able to distinguish between words that sound similar such as dog and hog.

By 6 months old linguists can tell, by the cooing and babbling that your child is producing, what range of language you have shared with them through ‘Direct Talk’.  The cooing and babbling sound your baby or toddler make are their first steps towards expressive language, producing the sounds that eventually form words.

A baby who can talk through cooing and babbling is more likely to initiate and continue verbal interaction and play with you and others. The first cooing sounds represent more vowel sounds such as ah, ooh, eee, uh, ah-ee, while the later babbling stage is more consonant sounds repeated such as ba, ba, ba, da, da, da, ma, ma, ma, ga, ga, ga.

At about 7 months old your child is now recognizing words and developing an understanding of what these words mean (receptive language).

Talk to your baby, talk all the time, about what you are doing, what is going on and just about how wonderful and beautiful they are.

How you talk to your baby has an impact. Research has shown that babies prefer you to talk to them using regular words (normal adult vocabulary) in a slightly higher pitched and more sing-song way. Although many adults do this naturally when talking to babies it has become known as ‘Parentese’ and is very different from ‘Baby Talk’.

Parentese is:

● Slower speech pace

● Articulate clearly, well-formed, elongated vowel sounds and clearly voiced consonants, so ‘hello’ becomes ‘heellooo’

● Use shorter sentences that are grammatically correct

● Vary and raise pitch of voice (as much as an octave)

● Stress words by pitch, intensity and length so ‘sweet baby’ becomes ‘sweeet baybeee’

● Use exaggerated facial expressions (eye contact, raised eyebrows, big smiles)

● Frequently use repetition

● Leave a gap/pause between sentences so that your child can coo and babble back (developing the turn taking structure of conversation)

● Talk face to face so that they can clearly see how your lips move and other facial expressions (this about 20 cm or 8 inches for a new born)

● Try using your child’s name first then the important word in the sentence and follow with the complete sentence; for example, “Jo, bottle, here is your bottle!”  Research suggests that at about 3- 4 months old a baby will turn their head when their name is called and that they will then focus on the next word that follows their name.

Baby Talk

Is where we replace regular words with nonsense or over simplified words; so “who is the cutest baby in the world!” becomes “oo es da  cutsie wootsiest beebee in da wold!”.  This does not help a child to develop the language skills they need to communicate effectively with others and can delay some children’s speech and language development.  What you may think sounds cute and adorable may actually hold your child back because others just cannot understand them, which can be very frustrating for your child.