Any mother closely follows not only the state of health of her baby, but also the pace of its development, especially during the first year of life. And young inexperienced mothers often have a question when the child should begin to react to his name and what to do if this does not happen on time. This article will help you understand these issues.
When should children react to their name?
Appeal by name is part of speech, so react to the name of the baby should start as early as the preparatory period of its formation, when it is laid the primary understanding of the names of objects, usually it occurs in the period from 7 to 10 months. Although many mothers note the reaction of the baby to his name as early as 6 months, but it may not be so, he could react simply to my mother's voice. But do not sound the alarm if it does not happen in the specified period, as each child is different from other children and develops according to their individual schedule. After all, there are children who by 10 months already speak a few words, and there are - which they begin to speak only by 2 years.
Possible reasons for not responding to a name
- problems in the hearing aid;
- deviation in psychological development;
- lack of communication;
- costs of upbringing.
What if the baby does not respond to his name?
To determine the reason why a child does not respond to his or her name, after a year one should consult the following doctors:
- otolaryngologist or audiologist - to check the hearing in a child, especially cases of hearing loss after a respiratory, ear, throat or nose (for example: otitis) problems or congenital problems occur. It is recommended that you conduct a hearing test at home before visiting a doctor, so that they can then report their findings to a specialist. After the examination, you will definitely give recommendations on increasing the level of hearing, and the child will react to the name;
- neuropathologist, psychologist - to determine the correspondence of the level of psychological development to age. Since the lack of response to one's own name in a child at the age of one year is a characteristic behavioral response for children who are subsequently diagnosed as "developmental delay", autism or impaired communicative function, and sent for a more thorough examination.
If your child understands speech addressed to him, he is interested in sounds he hears around him, but there is no reaction to his own name, it follows that his development is normal, and the reason is his misunderstanding that it is his name, or he knows about it, but just does not want to respond to the strength of his character.
Tips: how correctly to introduce the name?
Starting from 3-4 months, the child should be introduced to his name, to make it clear that it means him. You can do this according to these rules:
- showing him any object, call the name of the object, and then, touching the child, his name;
- when applying, use only one or two forms of his name, and not affectionate-diminutive "bunny" or "sunshine";
- going to pick it up or go up to him, call him first by name and wait for the reaction;
- more often call the child by name, putting it at the beginning of the sentence, especially when you want to interest: "Roma, look what my mother brought!".
- play with it in subjects.
Sometimes it happens that a child simply ignores his or her name, especially after a year, then you have to pay attention to the behavior of the parents themselves, maybe the child is simply spoiled by their attention, and he does not need to react when his name is. In this case, you need to turn to a psychologist who will help build a correct line of behavior in the family.