Hearing stimulation in babies
At birth, your child is perfectly prepared to receive stimuli. The world of sounds, reduced before to the beating of the heart and to the words of his mother, is now imposed on him with all his stimulating capacity. Your baby can distinguish the intensity, tone and timbre of a sound, can hear murmurs, not react to monotonous sounds, or locate a noise by turning the head.
Your son, at twelve hours of age, can already distinguish speech from other sounds. A week, he is able to recognize his name and the voice of the father and mother. A suitable auditory stimulation, undoubtedly, will favor the concentration of the child. In addition, there are some exercises to stimulate the baby's ear that we can put into practice to help him in his development.
Intensity and timbre: auditory stimuli for your baby
During the first two months, the newborn is very sensitive to the intensity and timbre of the voice and prefers, without a doubt, the acute sounds to the bass. As with adults, monotony bores him greatly. When we talk to our baby and, especially, when we ask questions, we should Modulate the words well Y maximize the voice. If we look at the mothers' voice when addressing their children, we will see that they increase instinctively.
Asking the child questions has the advantage of intensifying participation, even in the very young. exist two basic rules: a pronunciation exaggerated and the creation of a dialogue based on repetitive questions. The baby is happy to listen and will try to imitate us from the sixth week, without needing to wait for the fourth or fifth month, as previously believed. According to some studies, the brain of a newborn is totally capable of reacting to whispers; On the contrary, loud and aggressive noises bother him greatly.
Location of the sound
Babies tend to be interested in everything they hear and they try to locate the source of auditory information. As they control the movements of the head better, their effectiveness in this field increases considerably. Little by little they begin to locate the source of the sounds.
During the first month of life, it is advisable address the baby always in front. Little by little, distances can be increased until they are even outside of your field of vision. This practice will help you control the movements of the head and locate the sounds. However, and as a general rule, the best thing is to always talk face to face. As the child observes us, he will slowly become aware of the movements and facial expressions that accompany speech.
The maternal speech and the hearing of the baby
During the first six months of life, the child learns to distinguish the language from other sounds, in particular music, heartbeat, bells, rattles, etc.
A lot has been studied about the incidence of maternal speech in the linguistic development of the child. Talkative mothers are always asking questions like: "Are you hungry? Are you happy?" According to studies, children with talkative mothers showed greater ease of speech and a higher mental performance than those who did not have this luck.
How to talk to the baby
- Talk very quietly.
- Frequently pronounce your name.
- Start talking face to face, establishing eye contact.
- Increase the conversation time little by little.
- Respond to your vocalization attempts.
- Use: a simple vocabulary, a melodic and acute voice, an exaggerated intonation, short and simple sentences, an articulated pronunciation, numerous questions, and words with a syllable and a consonant.
The sounds that the baby likes the most
- The voice of the mother.
- Your name.
- The intonations type 'question'.
- The simple words.
- His own babbling.
- The humming.
- The nanas.
- Classical music.
- The rattles.
- Paper that wrinkles.
- The bells.
- The laughts.
- The heartbeat.
- The imitations of their own babblings.
Rocío Martínez-Aznar
