Why Kids Enjoy Animal Sounds so Much?- because babies can’t speak yet, doesn’t mean that they aren’t listening. From day one babies learn to associate sounds with their sources.
First, let’s talk about how babies progress from sounds to words. It’s important to remember that speech and sound development is a progressive process. Babies start by learning to form sounds, and then learning to form words.
Of course, babies first sound ever is to cry. Since they can’t talk when they’re born, they use crying as a way to let you know that something is wrong – they need a diaper change, they’re hungry, tired, and so forth. Crying is not a learned sound, but an instinctual one.
Just because babies can’t speak yet, doesn’t mean that they aren’t listening. From day one babies learn to associate sounds with their sources. They know the difference between mommy’s voice and daddy’s voice, and can tell that barking comes from the dog.
How Do Babies Progress from Imitating Sounds to First Words?
Pretty soon your baby will start to try to mimic your words. They won’t be successful at first, but they will be able to use their tongue, lips, and mouth to start gurgling and making “oo,” “ah,” and cooing sounds. By two months, your baby can associate different sounds with lip movements (even though they may not be able to make the sounds yet themselves).
By 4 – 6 months, the babbling stage begins. This is when your baby tries to talk, but doesn’t quite have the mouth formations down yet to form words. Then, their first words should follow shortly, and by 12 months your baby may be saying simple words like “mama” or “dada.” At the same time, they will continue imitating sounds, and as time passes they will learn to start forming more and more words.
By the end of 18 months, most babies can speak more than 10 words, and by 2 years they can start to put together simple phrases like “more milk.”
Why are Animal Sounds Important for Speech Development?
There’s actually a few different reasons that animal noises are so important for speech development. The first reason is because they are easy for children to learn.
When it comes to different sounds, the easiest consonants to pronounce are p, m, h, n, w, b, t, and d. They become even easier when paired with a vowel. When you put the two together, what do you get? Animal sounds! Baa, Moo, and so on. As well, animal sounds kids love are a great way to start working on their speech.
Once babies or toddlers can learn to make animal sounds, they can then use them as a building block for creating other words.
But animal sounds don’t just pave the way for learning new words, they also pave the way for learning sentences. By the age of 2, most toddlers can speak over 20 different words and can start to combine them together. “Cow moo” or “Dog woof” are easy combinations of words for a toddler to put together. Since toddlers are fascinated with animals, words like these will capture their attention more than that of an inanimate object like “a table.”
Use these visits and conversations to inspire him to design an original jungle gym or swing set. Start with graph paper and have him illustrate diagrams and plans with specific placement of each piece of equipment. Then create a visual representation using straws, cardboard, toilet paper, and paper towel rolls.
