By Michelle Mintz Your column here
OUR WORLD HAS SEEN TOO MANY children who have traveled down the wrong path. It is possible that their lives and the lives of those they affected could have been different if their parents knew more about how important the first five years of life are for a child’s development.
Recent medical studies have established that babies are deeply affected by their early experiences for the rest of their lives. Providing stimulating nourishing environments during children’s early years when their capacity to learn is at its greatest can produce changes in the actual structure, size and chemical characteristics of their brain by increasing the number and strength of their child’s brain connections. A child’s level of intelligence can be raised substantially by care they receive in their first five years of life.
It is crucial for parents to be able to recognize the different ways that their babies are communicating to them from the moment they are born. Parents need to understand their baby’s speech and language development and they must learn how they can actively improve the development of their baby’s ability to communicate. By applying simple quick techniques during natural daily routines, parents can increase their children’s capacity for learning by stimulating, strengthening and nourishing their baby’s brain development.
Some strategies when reading with your child: 1. Sit across from your child, face-to-face when reading together. As you point to the pictures and/or read the words you can then point to your mouth so they can see how it looks when different sounds are produced. Show them how your mouth starts open when you say, /o/ for the word “open” and it starts closed with your lips together when you say, /b/ for the word “ball”. 2. Help keep your child interested in the book by using lots of different exaggerated facial movements and producing different tones with your voice while looking at pictures or reading. 3. Increase your child’s attention span by making sure that you hold the book so you can control the pace. Children go too fast and turn many pages at once. Look at every page, point out at lease one picture on the left, middle and right side of the page and read slowly so they have a chance to imitate your words. 4. Give your child some control of the book reading by allowing them to turn the page when you’re ready. By using these strategies and taking a longer time to read the book, you are helping to stimulate your child’s attention and language skills as their focus is on the words, pictures and sounds rather than on turning the pages.
Some strategies when playing with your child: 1. To help increase eye contact, be sure to play on their level even if that means lying down on the floor so you can be more face-to-face. Hold toys by your eyes so it is easier for your child to shift their eye gaze from the toy to your eyes. 2. Label objects constantly. Every item your child shows an interest in something you bring to their attention should be verbally expressed with one word. For example when your son points to the animal across the street you say, “Dog.” 3. Repetition of the same word or short phrase will help your child comprehend the meaning and be able to generalize. For example, using the word “dog” when you see one in the pet store, in a picture book, in the window of the car next to you, and at the park will help your child understand that “dog” doesn’t just refer to the one you have in the house. 4. Expand your child’s language skills by always adding one more word onto the verbal expression they have produced. For example, if your child says, “more”, you repeat back, “more juice”, if your child says, “more juice”, you respond back, “more juice mama”. Determine how many words your child uses when speaking (i.e. the one word level, two word phrases, four word sentences) and then add one more word to what they have said when you respond back to them.
MICHELLE MINTZ is a licensed speech and language therapist in Santa Monica who developed the workshop “Baby’s Brighter Connections,” which is dedicated to teaching parents strategies and techniques to better communicate with their children. She
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 29, 2008. Read the original PDF.