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Questions & Answers - Speech & Language Concerns
My 9 month old daughter is not yet making any consonant sounds. Is
this cause for concern, or still too early to worry?
I am not that concerned at age 9 months if you are not hearing a lot
of consonant-vowel combinations yet, although many babies do start to
form single syllable consonant-vowels such as "ba", "ma" or "na" in the
6-9 month period and by 10-14 months are actively babbling a variety of
consonant-vowel combinations and/or saying first words. I am assuming
you are hearing a lot of vocalizations of open vowels, "ooh, aahhh,
uuuhhh"? You may sometimes also hear some gutteral sounds in the back of
the throat like a "g" or "k" sound. You should hear variation in her
voice even with the open vowel sounds, squealing, low pitches etc.
Is your daughter very mobile with crawling and learning to pull to stand
at this time? Sometimes babies are quieter verbally when they are
working on other motor skills such as crawling and learning to walk and
all that motor energy is going into those skills and once they are
mastered then the babbling begins in ernest. However, having said all
that, in the next month if you are still not hearing any consonant
sounds, you can call your local early intervention provider for a
developmental evaluation just to rule out that she is showing any delays
in her speech and language development. If your daughter has had
frequent ear infections, this would also be another reason to seek an
evaluation now, since fluid in the ears can greatly impact speech &
language development. In the meantime, continue to talk to your baby
constantly, sing songs with gestures such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
or Row Your Boat, read books, always make sure she is looking at your
face when you speak to her and play fun games with silly sounds-babble
to her "bababa" and "mamama" even if she is not yet repeating it back to
you. Even young babies have imitation skills and seeing your lips form
the sounds is important. You can also build some simple baby signs into
your daily routine such as the signs for "more", "eat", "drink" and
"play", you can find many websites online for baby signs and we as
therapists often use this total communication approach to language with
babies and toddlers (not just hearing impaired children).
This is a nice article related to how
sound
production is tied developmentally to feeding.
This is a resource for early intervention services in your area
if you wish to have an evaluation.
St. Louis County Duluth IEIC
Map
215 N 1st Ave E
Room 318
Duluth, MN 55802
Duluth(0709) 218-336-8744
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Questions & Answers - Speech & Language Concerns
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