speech development

Hilda; I was thinking last night about Nursery Rhymes and the fact that, although most of them make no sense, there has to be a reason why they came about in the first place [just a Grimms Fairy Tales teach children that the world isn't all sweetness and light]. When you think about it, it's amazing how much babies and toddlers take on board during th first few years of life. Just imagine if we had to do so when we were older.

Baby brains are fresh and uncluttered with trivia, I always think of them like bath sponges ready to soak up lots of information.

jackyann's points are important and, after all, there is never any harm in finding out if there is (or, hopefully, isn't) a problem.

Re the meanings of nursey rhymes, I understood that Ring-a-ring 'o roses is about the Black Death (plague). The ring of roses was the rash, a pocket full of posies refers to sweet-smalling plants people carried around to mask the odour of death that was everywhere. Atishoo speaks for itself, and so does We all fall down!

jacyann.....can remember an episode of QI where the Ring of Roses theory was debunked...ya never know

That wasn't me, but as a bit of a folk tale collector I had heard both ideas. I love snopes.com for this stuff (can't do links, but just go there & search for ring o roses). No-one can be definitive about folk-lore, but just reading all the evidence is interesting.

As for nursery rhymes - I was once involved on the fringes of a project where women learning English taught nursery children rhymes in their mother tongue. We recorded them, and all of them had the same features - strong rhythm, simple repetition, points to stop so the child can put the words in etc.

maxgran has your daughter thought about using Makaton?

Two of my grandchildren were taught Makaton by their chidminder when they were toddlers because they pick up the signs quickly and can communicate their needs long before they can use the actual words so they don't get quite as frustrated..

There's a CBBC programme that uses Makaton that she could watch with him to see if he's interested. I think it's called 'Something Special'

DD1 has been teaching GS various words of British Sign Language since he was a tiny baby. He's now twenty-one months old and beginning to talk but he also uses signs if he doesn't know or can't yet say a word. I remember him using the sign for 'bubbles' when I got out a bottle of bubble blowing liquid at only fifteen months old. It was delightful to see him communicating so naturally.

Our Daughter has been doing the same thing, grandson went to a baby group that taught signing, think it was called "sing & sign".

I think it's a great idea. Wish there had been these classes when my kids were wee.

Cressida,

Yes,.. Her son was taught some Makaton when he was having speech therapy when he was 3 I think. He still uses it a bit but she thinks he was relying on that rather than even trying to speak and her younger son
( who is a year younger) was picking up the Makaton from his brother and refusing to speak !
It was a help though for when he wanted something like a drink or something to eat. Its useful and does save frustration as you point out.

Yes, singing and saying rhymes is great for speech development. Try nursery rhymes. If he can't join in at all then you sing and let him fill in the last word at first then gradually 'share' the song. Repetitive ones like Old Macdonald Had a Farm are great too.
Some children can sing what they want to say more easily than just saying it. Try a game of sing-song voices, maybe taking turns with question and answer.