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ENCOURAGING TALKING

Picture of Very First Book of Things to Spot at Home

Caroline is now 13.5 months old, and she understands so much. She loves learning and spends a good portion of her day pointing to objects, pictures in books, etc., and asking us to name these items as she points them out. She says “there” and points. If we don’t answer right away, she continues to say “there” over and over, louder and louder! We have a couple of look and find books that we love. Caroline could literally spend all day looking through these books and asking us to name objects. She has learned the names so well, that we can ask her to find the objects we name, and she does so easily! Here are the two books we have and love for this type of language skill building:

My First Look and Find- Fisher-Price

Very First Book of Things to Spot at Home – Usborne

Here are several more “spot it” books that are great options on our list from Usborne as well!

So, while Caroline does not say many words, I am not at all concerned about her language skills or ability to understand things. She only has two words (Mama and Dada), and even those she rarely uses. I guess she also says “there” when pointing to objects, but I don’t really count that as a word, since I’m not sure she knows that it is a word! We do like to encourage her to talk, however, especially since she understands so much.

Caroline understands that certain words mean we’d like her to try and talk. We ask her to “say thank you”, “say more, please”, “ask to share”, “say apple”, etc. She tries! She reverts from whining, grunting, or moaning, to babbling. We praise her for her attempt every time! We also make sure to say “good try” instead of “good job”, because we want her to know that, while she didn’t say it correctly, she did talk, and we appreciate that!

Her babble is now starting to include more sounds. She is experimenting with different consonants and really attempting to say a few words at this point. She loves trying to say “banana”, “apple”, “glasses”, “excuse me”, and “tractor”. And, as I said, she talks on command now when we ask her to. She typically babbles the same noises, but she is babbling instead of whining, which is so good!

I have a feeling that Caroline is literally going to wake up one day and just be able to say 5 new words correctly. She likes to practice things on her own before showing us the perfected task. So, this wouldn’t surprise me at all! In the meantime, we will continue to encourage her to talk and always ask her to try!

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