The Talking Eight Month Old
Communication Milestones for Infant Speech and Language Skills
A Specialist Paediatric Speech-Language Pathologist outlines the early language and communication skills to expect at 8 months of age and provides tips.
By the age of 8 months, infants should be babbling. Initially this would be a string of sounds such as “dadadadada”, and then would be reduced to “dada” and eventually simply, “da”. Often at this stage babies are just experimenting with the different sounds that their mouths can make and don’t necessarily have meaning attached to what they are saying. They may also start to learn how call out to others and attempt to wave.
Early Communication and Language Skills of the Eight Month Old
- Says short syllables such as “da”, “ba” & “ga”
- Says “mama” or “dada” but may not be referring to “Mum” or “Dad”
- Attempts to imitate sounds
- Says a range of sounds in babbling including “b”, “p”, “m”, “t”, “d”, “k”, “g”
- Recognises and responds to their own name
- Listens to familiar words
- Listens to sounds that they and others say
- Looks at items or pictures when named
- Looks to people and pets when named
- Acknowledges their own reflection in the mirror
- Imitates gestures (such as waving)
- Uses inflection resembling talking in their babble
- Responds to sounds by turning head and shoulders
- Able to gain attention by vocalising
- Talks people using babble
- Plays with a toy for at least two minutes
- Reaches for objects and able to transfer items from one hand to the other
How To Encourage Early Communication & Language Skills in an Eight Month Old
Parents are inundated with all kinds of suggestions regarding how to raise a child. Often this may make people feel that unless children have the latest gadgets, their development is going to be delayed. It’s important to remember that for non-fussy infants and toddlers there are plenty of inexpensive play-based ideas to encourage language development.
- Talk to infants
- Smile at infants
- Sing to infants
- Provide lots of face to face contact so that they can see facial expressions and mouth movements
- Imitate facial expressions of infants back to them
- Imitate sounds that infants make. Follow this with an obvious pause to see if infant responds by smiling, laughing or making the sound again
- Initiate sound play (e.g. farm animal noises, transport noises)
- Make silly sounds that involve fun facial expressions, such as raspberries and goldfish noises
- Play peek-a-boo
- Provide inexpensive early development toys (rattles, hanging mobiles, musical toys, keys, soft toys, toys with friendly faces, toys that can safely be sucked)
- Look at simple rip-proof books together (cardboard, fabric or plastic pages), verbally labelling objects on pages
Not all children develop at the same rate, so it's fine if an infant hasn't reached all of the milestones mentioned above by the age of eight months. However, it's best to monitor their skills carefully to make sure that there is progress. If there are concerns about possible delays it's best to see a paediatrician and/or a speech-language therapist/speech pathologist.
