More Than Cries: Understanding Your Baby's Communication Skills in the First Year

Did you know that long before your baby can say their first words, they can communicate with you...right from day 1?

At Walky Talky, we share more information about your baby’s journey towards these big recognisable milestones. There are actually lots of tiny steps on the journey you can enjoy as they emerge and encourage them through play with guidance from therapy services when needed!

5 Things You Should Know About Baby Communication Development

1. Baby Communication Development Begins on Day 1

A baby has the capability to talk to you from Day 1. In fact, they were listening to you in utero and already have a preference for their own family’s voices and language.  

Their ability to communicate starts with cries, but soon develops into smiles, facial expressions and beautiful sounds. Your baby starts taking in an enormous amount of information about sounds, words and communication from birth. They learn all of this from the people around them! If you’re unsure about milestones, our various therapy services can help guide you through each stage.

2. Talking Supports Baby Communication Development

Although they won’t give much back to begin with, it is so important to talk to your baby from day 1 so that they learn the sound of your voice, and start to process and learn all the information about the language you are using.

Parents naturally adjust their voices when talking to babies – this is called ‘motherese’. Babies engage more with voices that have more exaggerated intonation and are higher pitched. At this young stage, when a baby is unable to calm themselves, your soothing voice is so important to help regulate them and keep them calm.

3. Turn-Taking Builds Baby Communication Skills

A good conversation is all about taking turns. If we didn’t do this, the conversation would be very one-sided!

Although you might feel like you’re doing most of the talking with your little baby, they can definitely join in too, and we need to provide them the opportunity to do so! 

When babies are given opportunities to take turns in a ‘conversation’, they're learning all about the basic rhythm of communication — that it’s all about a back and forth exchange between people.

When you're talking to your baby, PAUSE every now and then to wait for your baby to take their turn with their eye contact, smiles or sounds. For more on HOW to do this, we have a whole page on 'taking turns with talking' in our Walky Talky Baby membership, and our therapy services at the Walky Talky Hub in Perth can give you tailored support for building these skills.

 4. Baby Communication Development Through Cooing

Those gorgeous 'oooo' and 'ahhh' sounds your baby makes - that's called cooing! This typically starts around 6-8 weeks and is such a beautiful stage. It's when your baby first starts to realise the power of their voice and that by making sounds they can communicate with you. 

To encourage these sounds, keep your language simple and use simple sounds too! Try copying their sounds and see what you notice. You're likely to see a big smile on their face :) If you’d like extra strategies for this stage, Walky Talky Hub, our Perth-based therapy services can show you how to support your baby’s communication in fun and engaging ways.

5. How to Support Your Baby’s Communication Development

 It's all about keeping it SIMPLE. You've probably heard us use this term before....and that's because we want parents to realise it can be simple to support your baby's development. As parents we are often stressing too much and working too hard. If we sit back, keep it simple and watch and notice our babes, they are doing most of the work and just need a guiding hand (or voice!) from us. 

Here's some of the ways you can interact with them to support their communication more and more:

• keep your words and sounds simple
• use big facial expressions as you're talking - they love watching your face as they listen to your voice
• Talk about anything. Comment on what you see and what they're looking at. This helps add language to their world and helps them to start making the connections between sounds, words and everything around them. 

Families in Perth can benefit from our speech therapy services at Walky Talky Hub to learn even more practical strategies for supporting baby communication development in everyday life.