After the first smile, nothing else is perceived by adults with such delight as the humming of a baby. This is his first language, it is unique in its own way and is necessary for the formation of speech. We will tell you about the timing and peculiarities of humming in this article.
What it is?
Traditional medical sources interpret humming as a stage of pre-speech development. That is, so far this is not a speech, but it is no longer a cry with which a newborn communicated with his mother and other relatives for any reason, whether it be a desire to communicate or a wet diaper. At 2-3 months, on average, babies begin to walk, which means that their need for screaming is no longer so great. The child will now scream for very specific reasons, when the presence and participation of an adult is an urgent vital necessity (hunger, cold, pain). In other cases, the baby walks, and this cannot but cause emotion.
The humming continues up to about six months. Then the child smoothly moves to the stage of babbling and becomes even one step closer to human speech.
The child begins to gag not because he wants to. It's just the way nature works, and the skill itself is considered spontaneous. Usually the baby "hums" at rest, when he feels good, comfortable when he is full, often - exclusively in the presence of adults, but sometimes children do this to themselves.
At the very beginning of humming, the child pronounces short sounds, usually starting with vowels ("y", "a", "s") and gradually moving on to their union with some consonants ("gu", "ha", "ma"). At 4 months old, babies achieve such vocal skill that they begin to pronounce not only individual sounds and syllables, but also whole cascades of sounds. The stage of pre-speech development following humming is called babbling.
It is noteworthy that different children walk in almost the same way. At this beautiful tender age, there are no nationalities, no language barriers. But by six months, the crumbs begin to utter sounds that more and more resemble the sounds of their native language, as they hear and perceive it from parents and other adults. Experiments have shown that an adult French, Japanese or American is quite capable of identifying a child of the same nationality, simply by listening to an audio recording of such a baby's humming at 6-7 months.
Even if a child is deprived of the ability to hear, he still walks. Some toddlers with hearing impairments even go through the initial stages of babbling. But then they need medical attention and aids in speech recognition, otherwise they will not learn to speak.
Possible problems
Upon reaching a certain age, parents begin to expect responses from the crumbs, but they may not be there. There are children who are limited only to a short period of training for future speech. They sort of taste the sounds, pronounce vowels and get scared themselves. Such babies can be silent, like partisans, at 5 and 6 months.
Fear or negative experiences, as well as a sudden illness, may be associated with a sudden loss of ability to pronounce sounds. The child walked, for example, from 2 months, and at 4 months he stopped and fell silent. Under the influence of fear, stress, or even the most common cold that the baby suffered, he could temporarily forget the new skill.
The reason for the delay in the development of humming or its disappearance can be the weak emotional development of the baby: they communicate little with him, they hardly talk, they do not pay enough attention to him. Establishing verbal contact with a baby is not easy, but nothing is impossible in this. The delay in mental and emotional development is indicated not only by the absence of humming in principle, but also by monotonous "singing", mooing at the age of 4–5 months and older. Normally, at this age, humming becomes emotionally colored: the child can pronounce his "aha" both with pleasure and with annoyance, both demanding and affectionately, tenderly. In babies with a delay in the development of the psyche and the formation of emotions, the emotional color of sounds is practically absent.
Walking can be absent or very poor, almost undeveloped in children with autism. Babies with Down syndrome, with congenital dementia, children who have suffered severe head injuries, and cerebral hemorrhages at birth behave similarly. With the defeat of the center of speech, there can be no humming or babbling at all, as well as subsequent speech skills.
Later, premature babies begin to walk, as well as babies who are often sick and therefore weakened. Children who are lazy by their nature can also start walking a little later than their active and curious peers. Rarely enough, the reason for the absence of humming, gurgling and babbling is anomalies in the structure of the vocal cords and speech apparatus, since these anomalies themselves are relatively rare.
It is possible to suspect a baby's hearing problems only at the babbling stage. Children who cannot listen and hear themselves do not move on to the specific babbling of certain syllables, stopping at the stage of vocal (chanting vowel) humming.
How to teach?
Parents can contribute to the development of humming in the most direct way. You don't need to master any speech therapy techniques for this - you just need to communicate with the baby. Often and a lot. For any reason and without it. Whatever the mother is busy with (cooking, cleaning, ironing), she can comment on her actions out loud. The kid will carefully listen to her intonation, sounds and sooner or later will want to repeat them.
Defectologists and speech therapists argue that for a child's better understanding of an adult's speech, you need to speak not softly, but not loudly either, since the average frequencies of human speech are best fixed in memory and perceived.
If the baby often witnesses family quarrels, the mother often speaks in an irritated tone, raising her voice, that is, it is likely that he will begin to master humming not from gentle, careful, cooing sounds, but from screams and squeals. Therefore, it is recommended to always speak in a friendly and even tone with a child. From the age of two and three months, you need to start making eye contact with your baby while talking.
Handing him a toy with the traditional "Na" in such cases, the mother should try to look into the baby's eyes and meet a reciprocal look. If the child hums, and does not hum, the mother should not imitate his sounds. In all other cases, it will be good if the mother begins to imitate the sounds of the baby. Such contact will be the beginning of the child's full speech development.
Try to choose minutes for communication when the house is quiet. This is difficult to do in a noisy environment: the baby will be distracted by a working TV, loud music or the hubbub of voices and will simply be silent. That is why the youngest children in large families often suffer from delayed speech development.
In situations where a child only listens to an adult and does not attempt to imitate at all, the techniques of so-called passive imitation are used. Mom pronounces the typical humming "gu-gu-ha-ha" and at the same time opens the child's lower lip with her thumb, repeating her own articulation. Gradually, the baby develops an understanding of the relationship between facial expressions and outgoing sound. There is also a special speech therapy massage for babies. It consists in the vibration of the hands on the child's chest, lightly touching the larynx and submandibular space with the fingertips.
Even if the baby stubbornly refuses to walk, do not give up activities and attempts. It so happens that, having passed the stage of humming, the baby, after 5-6 months, begins to babble and progresses rather quickly. The ability to recognize the speech of adults is also important for the acquisition of pre-speech and speech skills. Therefore, the mother should often ask the child questions and answer them herself, all interaction actions should be commented on: "give", "on", "so", "not so", "this is it." Short indicative combinations of sounds will help your child to quickly master passive (internal) speech.
Unfortunately, parents often wait for the first "mom" or "dad" and do not attach much importance to other sounds and their combinations that the baby pronounces. And the baby is very much waiting for approval and reaction when he once again pronounces his “gu”, “boo”, etc. The more emotionally and attentively parents react to humming, the faster the baby will move in the right direction of mastering human speech.
The most difficult stages of humming and babbling are bilingual children who hear two languages at once. By six months they are usually "determined" themselves: in their babbling, the sounds of the language that affects them more strongly begin to prevail. But there may be a mixture of sounds of two languages. With such guys, you need to study in one language, only gradually (after a year) adding sounds and syllables of another language. The development of fine motor skills of the hands is also important for the development of pre-speech skills. Hand movements and speech center are interconnected. Therefore, children from the age of two and three months should have objects that are quite different to the touch (toys, rags) that will develop tactile sensations in the fingers. By six months, pyramids and baby cubes, safe sorters without small parts, will be useful.
Very effective for children who walked, but then suddenly fell silent under the influence of some external factors, may be the method of "imitating yourself": the child includes an audio recording of his own humming, made earlier. Listening encourages the toddler to remember the skill and continue developing it.
The opinion of Dr. Komarovsky
Evgeny Komarovsky, a pediatrician and TV presenter, whose opinion is very important for millions of mothers around the world, claims that the absence of humming at 3.4, 5 and even 6 months is not yet a reason for panic and a comprehensive medical examination of a child. If all the other skills of the baby are age-appropriate, if he has an excellent appetite, healthy sleep, he smiles and clearly recognizes his relatives, then you should not think about the bad. The child just needs time.
Komarovsky strongly warns of the danger of lisping with a child. Mom can imitate his babbling or humming only up to six months. Then you need to start communicating with the child as with an adult, otherwise the baby may "get stuck" in babbling for a long time, and then the parents will have a new problem - how to teach him to speak humanly in his 1.5-2 years.
According to Komarovsky, the main “teachers” in matters of mastering speech are the love and goodwill of adults, as well as constant repetition, which will contribute to memorizing the first syllables and words.
In the next video, Dr. Komarovsky will consider two main questions that worry most parents: is it worth sounding the alarm if the child in his development does not fit a little into the accepted norms, and what could be a dangerously significant deviation from these norms.
