Agukanye and humming in babies are so closely interrelated that it is rather difficult to distinguish these stages of the formation of speech in an infant separately. Some sources indicate that children begin to gaggle after they have mastered vocal humming - chanting vowels. Other experts are inclined to believe that the initial stages of vocalization are gurgling, and humming follows later. Third sources claim that there is no difference at all. Be that as it may, parents look forward to the first sounds from the baby with great impatience. We will tell you about the timing, features and development of agukanya in this article.
When to expect sounds?
The term "gagging" does not exist in medicine, there is the concept of "humming", which includes various options for pronouncing the first sounds. Babies begin to gag and walk at a certain stage of pre-speech development. The first step is screaming. It is he who accompanies the birth of the little man and in the first weeks is the only means of communication between the baby and others.
A newborn baby cries out because of hunger or cold, because of heat or infant colic, because of damp diapers, and from one month of age and because of the need to communicate with mother. At the age of 2-3 months, as hearing and vision develop, the baby learns to smile, imitate the sounds he hears. It was at this time that he begins to walk and gag. But you can wait for the first sounds even later - up to 7 months, some children are stubbornly silent.
Babbling is considered the next stage in the development of speech - humming and gurgling become more complicated, syllables and sounds characteristic of the baby's native language become distinguishable in them.
Babies do not start aguking of their own free will, and even more so not because of the efforts of adults to teach a child to do it. Just gurgling and humming are provided for by physiological and psychophysical development. Even deaf children gurgle, but at the stage of babbling, their pre-speech development is inhibited, since they cannot hear themselves.
At first, children sing simple vowels in all modes, and then, at the height of the humming period, they add laryngeal and posterior laryngeal consonants - "g", "k" to them.
It is usually believed that a healthy baby is quite capable of producing whole rounds of repetitive sounds by 4-5 months.
Reasons for silence
Do I need to worry and run to doctors if at three months the child does not gurgle? Of course not, because the speech and pre-speech development of children is subject to the rules of individuality and cannot be the same for everyone. In addition, periods of speech development can alternate with periods of complete and frightening silence for the parents. So, a baby who has been pleasing his mother with his “aha” and “aha” since 2 months may well be silent. If the baby stops gurgling at 4 months or later, do not hesitate, this is a temporary phenomenon caused by fright, stress, illness, and teething. The kid, as it were, forgets a new skill for a while, but under favorable circumstances, he again returns to humming.
The baby can not gag according to the "family tradition". If the family members are completely silent, not used to smiling, laughing, expressing their emotions vividly, then the children grow up the same. The more they talk to the child, communicate, smile at him, the more they sing songs and read nursery rhymes, the faster he will start repeating the sounds he heard and these attempts will become gurgling and humming.
The reason for visiting the doctor may be unusual humming or gurgling in the form of screeching or mooing, which the child uses to communicate after six months of age. Mooing, devoid of an emotional connotation, mood, may be the first sign of brain disorders or mental abnormalities.
The absence of gurgling during the first year of life is characteristic of children with autism, Down syndrome and other genetic syndromes. Sometimes the absence of natural sounds for babies indicates that the child received a cranial injury, cerebral hemorrhage at birth or immediately after it, about the defeat of certain centers, including the center of speech and sound recognition.
Premature babies start gagging later than their full-term peers.
Babies, weakened by frequent illnesses or congenital ailments, also begin to gurgle later, as do very melancholic and lazy babies who are simply that way by virtue of their character and temperament.
Can you teach to hum?
You cannot teach this, but you can help the child. The mother's main assistant in this matter will be daily and sufficient time communication with the baby.
Whatever is happening at the current time, if the baby is awake, the mother needs to comment and explain all her actions aloud. Songs and rhymes should be told to the child when the adult has eye contact with the toddler, so that the baby can observe the facial expressions.
The kid will willingly begin to walk and gag, if the mother speaks to him in a calm tone, often changes intonation, speaks in a singsong voice. The loudness of speech also matters - no need to shout or whisper, children are best able to perceive the average frequencies of human speech.
Mutual imitation is what parents need to achieve. In other words, the baby will repeat individual sounds after the mother, and the mother needs to repeat them after the baby. Then the effect of recognizing sounds will arise, the baby will begin to laugh in response. Communication will become more emotional.
Mom needs to try very hard to name the baby all the toys and objects that she gives him. But it is necessary to establish pre-verbal contact with the baby when the apartment is relatively quiet. Children are easily distracted by extraneous sounds - by the cries of other children, by the TV, by the loud speech of adults, and therefore the time for communication must be chosen favorable.
The massage of the palms and fingers of the baby will help teach the baby to reproduce sounds, since the speech center of the brain and fine motor skills are closely interconnected. Useful speech therapy massage, based on light touches to the larynx and submandibular region. If all else fails, you can try to apply the "passive imitation" technique. This is how speech therapists and early childhood defectologists call exercises for the lips. Mom will need to pronounce "gu" and "ha" herself, at the same time opening the lower lip of the crumbs with her finger, as if repeating her own articulation.
Children are in dire need of approval, and therefore any first sounds produced should be appreciated by adults. If mom and dad will sincerely rejoice in them and show this joy to the child, then this will be the best incentive for the further development of humming and gagging.
When the baby begins to pronounce the first sounds, be sure to record them on your phone or dictaphone. This is useful not only to please grandparents, but also in case the baby suddenly becomes silent at a certain period of its development. Then it will be possible to apply the technique of "imitating yourself".
By turning on the recording for listening to the baby, you can achieve the effect of recognizing and playing the skill again.
How not to harm?
In order to achieve normal speech and pre-speech development from a child, you do not need to force him to say something. If the baby feels annoyance and irritation emanating from the closest person - mother, it will be much more difficult for him to start communicating with her and with the world around him.
You do not need to "lisp" too long with a crumb. The imitation of his "gu-gu" and "agaga" should last no longer than up to six months. After that, the baby should become a full-fledged interlocutor with whom they conduct conversations in a completely adult way.
Otherwise, the mental development and development of directly speech skills will slow down significantly, the crumb will remain for a long time at the pre-speech stage of development.
Try to avoid conflicts and open quarrels in the presence of your baby. The tension and anger in the voice of adults does not at all stimulate the desire to repeat what they have heard. Children growing up in families with a dysfunctional psychological climate develop with a long delay.
Dr. Komarovsky will tell you about the norms and timing of the development of children in the next video.
