Let's talk - activities and ideas!
First smiles, first babbles, first words... they’re all exciting milestones because you get to see your baby or child communicate. You know that those early smiles, coos and babbles are times of connection and so won’t be surprised that learning to talk is about much more than first words.
We’ve put a round up of all our articles about talk and communication at the bottom of your Today screen. We’ll leave them there for a while, so you have lots of time to read them. And we thought for this weekend’s play ideas, we’d focus on supporting your little one’s communication.
Our key articles about... communication and learning to talk!
Your ‘Discover more...’ section has a range of articles linked to the skills your child is developing now – so you can always find the information you need. You’ve told us sometimes you’d like to understand what's coming next so we’re going to be sharing themed articles all in one place.
This time we’ve put together key articles about speech, language and communication development – from supporting babies' first sounds to learning to talk and encouraging conversation.
Help your child learn to communicate
We know communication involves much more than saying the right words. Research published this year suggests growing up bilingual provides opportunities for children to develop communication skills beyond learning words.[1]
There is considerable research about how children learn to communicate when they grow up learning more than one language.
Girls, boys and learning to communicate
You probably find lots of people share their opinions about your child’s development – and if you hear something a few times you might wonder if it’s true. One of the things we’ve heard many times is that girls learn to talk sooner than boys, so when we saw a research paper reviewing this we thought we’d dive in and find out more.
In this paper, scientists from the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies in Rome looked at research that had considered the development of language in boys and girls – looking at if, how and why this differed.[1]
What does tennis have to do with your child's development?
Well, strictly speaking, not very much actually. But there is one phrase that’s important for both a successful game of tennis and developing children’s social, cognitive and communication skills – ‘serve and return’.
Just like in tennis, when we talk about serve and return interactions in child development we are talking about two people passing something back and forth – and paying attention to make sure it keeps moving for as long as possible.
Let them play with it! Why handling objects is important
We love how great it feels when your child masters a skill, especially when you know you have helped them get there. You know we’re passionate about child development, and one of the many amazing things about young children and their learning is how much everything connects together!
You’ll see that lots of our activity ideas use the things you have around you and everyday situations. It’s great if you’re trying not to spend a fortune on toys, but also from the point of view of supporting your child’s development – and like everything MFFY we have the research to back up what we say!
