The first sounds a baby makes are involuntary, with the baby reacting to their own needs. Between 2-5 months, the full range of vowel sounds is acquired. The baby will use the same sounding vowels as the parents. From 6 months, vowels are combined with consonants e.g. "ma", "ba" in babbling. Babbling helps the child to practice the motor sequences, which make up the building blocks of speech development. Children and adults do not articulate every sound in every word. They acquire automatic sequences, which allow the child to speak at increasing speed. At 8-9 months, hearing-impaired children stop babbling. At 9-10 months, strings of sounds are put together, e.g. "Mama, Dada", with conversational intonation.

Why is it important?
Pre-language skills form the basis on which understanding and talking is developed. For example, the child who has difficulty looking at and attending to his mother's speech will not have as many opportunities to hear the language and words his mother is saying and attach meaning to those words. This will have a negative effect on his development of understanding.

Similarly, difficulties with joint attention will mean less opportunities to learn about things. It is through looking at something together and the adult commenting or talking about what they are seeing that the child learns about the world and attaches meaning to words (e.g. both looking at the dog out the window and saying "dog").

Children who have difficulty in the development of pre-language skills will go on to have verbal language and interaction difficulties. Identifying and working on development of pre-language skills at an early age can prevent difficulties with verbal language later in the child's life.

You can tell there are problems with pre-language skills if a baby or child:

• Does not give eye contact or it is fleeting.
• Does not respond with a social smile.
• Does not use different vocalisations and sounds to indicate being happy, sad, hungry, cross, tired, etc.
• Does not play with sounds or babble as a baby.
• Does not copy facial expressions or gestures.
• Does not use his voice or gesture to get your attention.
• Does not attempt to show you things or draw your attention to something of interest to them.
• Does not enjoy others participating in their play.
• Does not respond to different expressions or tones of voice (e.g. angry face/voice vs. happy face/voice etc.).

(These difficulties may vary depending on the child's age).

When Pre-language Skills are less than ideal, it can contribute to:

• Reduced opportunities to listen to and learn language.
• Delay in the development of understanding of language.
• Reduced opportunities to interact with others.
• Delayed play skills.
• Delayed talking.

What can be done to improve Pre-language Skills?

• Spend time playing with your baby/child everyday.
• Talk to your child often throughout the day, talk about things you are doing so the child learns to link the words with the actions.
• Turn off back ground noise in the home (e.g. T.V, radio, music, etc.
• Get face to face with your child when talking.
• Simplify the language you use with your baby/child
• Follow your child gaze or interest and talk about what they are looking at using simple language.
• Vary your voice and intonation when talking to help gain your child's attention.

Activities that can improve Pre-language Skills include:

• Play peek a boo games to develop eye contact.
• Bring toys, items next to your face when naming them or playing with them to encourage your child to look at your face.
• Play fun games putting on hats, glasses, scarves, etc. to encourage your child to look at your face.
• Listen to sounds around the house or in the park together and talk about the sounds you hear.
• Read stories together to develop listening and attention (don't worry if you don't finish the book, looking at one or two pages is better than none).
• Play lots of interactive games, like "Chasey", "Tickling", "Hide and Seek".
• Sing songs and nursery rhymes from a very young age.
• Make up songs using a favourite tune to describe what your child is doing.
• Play simple turn-taking games, like rolling the ball back and forth, taking turns building a tower, etc.