While watching your baby do innocent activities is a treat to the eyes, it is an equally menacing experience to constantly monitor your baby for reaching developmental milestones. One such important milestone is the beginning of speech. Normally, children begin to babble out single syllable words like “ma” or “ba-ba-ba” by the age of 1 year. However, around 10 percent of the babies have delayed speech problem. Most often, this problem can be easily solved by early intervention and proper treatment.

One common cause of speech delay could be being a twin, which indicates slow development. Severe cases could be autism or mental retardation, which have ill-effect on the child’s life. In order to ensure your child starts speaking normally, one must communicate with the child as much as possible. This is the best way to encourage the child to speak. Reading story books could also be a good way to make the child understand new words and relate them to pictures. Instead of a one-sided dialogue, encourage an interactive conversation with your child. Use visual cues and gestures while speaking, which will make the child imitate you and also help you learn the signs the child uses to explain something.