First Words
Your baby's first words begin long before he actually forms a word. His babbling and cooing signify his first attempts to interact with you while he explores what his mouth can do. Your reactions to those noises encourage him to continue making sounds. By interpreting the sounds you hear as words, you reinforce the babble.

"A baby babbles randomly and happens to say 'ma, ma, ma,'” says Mindy Hudon, M.S., CCC-SLP, certified speech and language pathologist. “Mom reacts positively. The baby begins to associate 'ma, ma, ma' for that nice lady who feeds, changes and holds her. As your baby grows and experiments with babbling, he learns to make very cool sounds that others respond to."

Before her first birthday your baby will do all her talking when she is content, making friendly or joyful noises. If she's cross or distressed, she probably won't talk; she'll cry. Her first speech involves interacting with you when she is happy, rather than communicating a need.

Your Role
"Babies are like little sponges,” Hudon says. “They absorb what they see, hear, taste and touch." Although your baby knows how to babble from birth, she learns speech sounds and patterns from you. She learns to exclaim, pause, speak again and then chat some more just by listening.

In the second half of her first year, you'll probably catch her practicing while you're not in the room. When she wakes up in the morning or when she's alone in the playpen, you may hear a chorus of delighted talk. She behaves as if you are in the room and talking to her. She carries on long, babbling conversations, making a sound, pausing for the response and then responding.

"Parents should talk, and talk a lot,” Hudon says. “They need to talk about everything their child sees, hears, touches or tastes." She recommends using phrases such as, "It's time to take a bath. Isn't the water warm? Let's wash your arm. Where is the soap?" Don't limit your talking time to when you are tending to your baby's needs. Talk to him when you wash the dishes, fold the laundry and run errands. Take time to sit and show him picture books, pointing to objects and labeling them.

"By providing an environment rich with language and speech, parents help their children use words to communicate needs and wants," Hudon says. Your baby loves to listen to human voices, and he associates your voice with pleasure and having his needs met.

"I chatted with babies before they were born,” says Sheri McGregor, mother of five. “Then I chatted and chatted all the time with them. It didn't matter what we did – I talked." By constantly giving her children opportunities to hear and practice speech, they understood language long before they tried their first "real" words.

McGregor feels that her children talked at an earlier age because of the amount of language she and her husband exposed them to. At 13 months, her oldest child began stringing words together. "He marched over to the fridge and tried to open it,” McGregor says. “He pointed in and said, 'Mama, cook taco.'"

Talk, Sing and Chant
Pleasure and excitement motivate a child's interest in speech. Holly Byrne, mother of three, used nursery rhymes to capture her children's attention. "We sang and chanted rhymes like 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' because it gave me a soothing way to interact with my children," Byrne says. She spoke and sang to them in a calm, cheery tone when she bathed, dressed or fed them.

"Rhyming stimulates the brain, is great for inflection, and is a prerequisite for reading," Hudon says. The repetitive patterns of words strengthen speech and, combined with hand movement, make learning fun. Ham it up with your child, and exaggerate body language and speech inflections. Go to the library and borrow some nursery rhyme books. Re-learn them with your child, laughing at your singing voice and silly mistakes.

"We often sang little songs to tell my fourth child things – made up songs that went with well known tunes,” McGregor says. “When he was 18 months old he asked for things in the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.'" She used the lilting quality of nursery rhymes and chants to exaggerate inflections in her speech.

Word Approximations
Remember that pleasure and excitement stimulate speech. "When your child makes up a word for something she wants, accept that word and model the correct word back to her," Hudon says. If she uses "ma" for "more," don't frustrate her by pretending to not understand. Exaggerate "more" when you say, "Oh, you want more." Refusing to acknowledge "own words" spoils the flow of language development and disappoints her.

You are the most important person in your child's life. You, better than anyone else, know what he means when he points and grunts. Don't be surprised if others have no clue what he means. It's your job to interpret both ways. If he asks Grandma for a cookie but Grandma can't understand, rephrase it for him. If Grandma asks your baby a question, rephrase that, too. Eventually you'll be a bystander rather than an interpreter in his conversations.

Your child will point and grunt and string together words according to her own schedule. Help her along with encouragement, constant language and lots of love. Soon you'll be shaking your head, wondering where this little talking machine came from.