Alma Emprendedora Alma Emprendedora Issue 003 2014 | Page 61

Once your baby
comes into the
world he needs to
communicate
with his mother,
father and
significant others.
Parents and
caretakers must
be aware of the
early signs of
speech and
language from the moment they are born.
Babies communicate with their
caretakers and their environment doing
the following:

O

1 month old: Responds to the
human voice. Calms down when he hears
a familiar or friendly voice. Smiles when
he sees his parents or hears their voice.
Cries when he wants to be attended to.
Vocalizes and listens.

2 months old: Distinguishes
different speech sounds. Gurgles and
produces guttural and pleasure sounds.

3 months old: Turns head when he
hears a voice. Responds verbally to
other’s speech. Produces vocal sounds,
humming and simple syllables. Begins to
discriminate distinctive emotional
features of the voice. Begins to have eye

contact accompanied with voice.
Incorporates the /g/ sound.

4 months old: Babbling becomes
more frequent and begins to incorporate
consonants like /p/, /b/ and /m/. His tone
intensity begins to vary. Begins to imitate
vowel sounds. Smiles to people that
speak to him. Vocalizes while maintaining
eye contact. Use sounds such as /p/, /
b/, /m/.

5 months old: Vocalizes while he
plays with his toys. Can differentiate
between friendly and angry voices.
Experiment with verbal sounds like “ga,
ga, ga”. May begin to respond to his
name. Smiles and vocalizes when he
sees his image on the mirror. Uses vowel
sounds similar to /o/ and /u/. Follows
mother’s eyesight to observe different
objects. Moves head towards the source
of the sound.

6 months old: Modifies his volume,
tone and voice. Vocalizes sounds of
pleasure and disgust. Understands the
meaning of “no”. May apparently
recognize words like, “mommy”, “daddy”
and “goodbye”. Babbles and imitates his
own sounds. Begins to imitate
environmental noises.

ALMA EMPRENDERORA 62