When turning one, toddlers begin babbling. They imitate one or two words of adults.
As usual, a 2-year-old can babble a few short sentences, while 3-year-old kids will develop their vocabulary by saying a little clearer ones.
Those developmental milestones are the general standard gauging your kid’s growth. Still, each child progresses in different ways.
Some delay cases also happen, like a 3 year old talking gibberish.
Why is that happening? What are the signs and how to help your children? The following sections will make it all clear for you.
Why Is My 3 Year Old Talking Gibberish?
Why does my 3 year old only speak Gibberish? In general, three-year-old talking gibberish stems from a speech delay.
We can also say that hearing impairment, developmental disorders related to autism, or cognitive damage all will lead to gibberish talking.
There are many reasons behind triggering that unfortunate regression in speech. So let’s dive deeply into this below part to discover details of each gibberish cause:
Premature Birth
Preemies suffer numerous more handicaps than full-month newborns, including slow speaking progress. But do not see this as a kind of humiliation or something like that.
Your gibberish children go a little slow behind other peers, but they will develop once the time comes.
Insufficient Stimulation
The development path of a child cannot move without our involvement which is the firm foundation. In particular, verbal stimulation from family members can help fasten the speaking age.
In contrast, short verbal interaction may block them from hitting developmental milestones.
So try to create many conversations with your toddler. Be patient to tell them anything and gradually motivate them to imitate accordingly.
Cognitive Disabilities
Another concerning trigger may come from intellectual disabilities. But you will figure it out at the pediatrician’s office.
Impairment in cognitive weakening the speaking ability, making them solely gibberish at three.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Babies regressing in forming words may have autism spectrum disorder. The autistic symptoms impair their ability to talk clearly, which include:
- Repetitive behaviors and phrases.
- Disabled verbal communication skills, speech regression
- They can’t verbally express when they get angry. Click here to tire out an autistic child in such cases.
Brain Damage
Toddlers diagnosed with brain damage will gibberish instead of speaking full sentences.
If your child has been in severe accidents that cause brain injuries, their impaired speaking ability will be one of the consequences.
Simply put, essential muscles controlling speech ability get impaired by neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy.
The babies’ heads are still very soft and easily get injured, so avoiding strong bumps is highly recommended.
Hearing Impairment
Parents need to take annual hearing check-ups for young children. Since the hearing disability also contributes to 3-year-old talking gibberish.
Once your child does not react to your sound but your gestures, they are certainly having problems with hearing. So they will tend to speak gibberish rather than form clear sentences.
Is Gibberish Normal For Toddlers To Talk?
Yes, it is.
Every child develops in different ways, away from common standard rules. Thus, a late-bloomer is still normal in their progressing route.
They might fall into the “toddler speaking gibberish area,” but that does not mean they lose this ability. One day, gibbering children also catch up with their normal-developing peers.
Moreover, they can still grow strongly in many other areas like height, weight, and intelligence. So “abnormality” seems to be an inappropriate word to describe the gibberish situation.
This developmental condition is not a big deal. More importantly, parents need to focus on how to help their children overcome this difficult phase.
Can A 3-Year-Old Talk Properly?
According to Stanford Children’s Health, a child turning three has reached the milestones including:
- Secure up to 1000 vocabulary
- Create 4- or 5-word sentences
- Understand speaking inputs
- Imitate similarly to others’ sentences
- Remember to say basic phrases in individual cases like “sorry” or “thank you.”
- Capable of naming animals, colors, or household objects
- Sing simple nursery rhymes
- Introduce their names
With a list of milestones, we will say that a three-year-old can talk properly and communicate with others in simple daily situations.
How To Diagnose 3-Year-Old Babbling
Once you see the signs of speaking gibberish, it would be best to make a meeting with a pro-speech-language pathologist (SLP).
The SLP will conduct a series of tests to acquire your child’s milestones. They relate to the structure of mouth parts and responding capabilities, which specifically involve:
- Check the shape of lips, tongue, palate, and other components to see if they combine smoothly together
- To what extent can your child understand our speech (receptive language)
- What words and sentences can your child say (expressive language)
- Check the clarity of your child’s emitting sound
The test outcome is the base to prescribe a proper treatment. Move right on to the next part to discover our recommended approaches to ease the gibberish speaking.
How Can Parents Settle Gibberish Problems?
Parents can work out the babbling issues with ease if following one of these below solutions:
Find Appropriate Speech Therapy
Speech therapy is the first way you may give a shot. But it would be best if you took advice from your pediatrician to employ this method correctly.
Your child will begin talking a bit more when things go as they are.
Usually Read To Your Toddler
Reading baby books also works as well as the above way. Parents usually have to read their kids’ favorite books and magazines.
Noticeably, colorful and animated books can affect their verbal skills.
Let your child sit in the chair or on your lap in his leisure time, then read clearly to them. Or else, reading before bed also brings good results in dealing with gibberish.
Practice With Games And Videos
This suggestion appears to be the best-loved activity for children with gibberish speaking.
Video games consisting of body parts, animals, and letter recognition will create a relaxing and interesting environment.
This way allows parents to reduce the babbling issue gradually. Otherwise, taking some road trips with your baby can work wonders.
Tell Your Stories Constantly
Keep narrating your stories to three-year-old children with gibberish can also settle the matter. This way, parents need to have the patience to tell any story constantly without any boredom.
As such, you will see a clear improvement in lowering babbling. Children hear the story while picking out new words.
They try to understand and imitate your soft voice. Time after time, gibberish talkers can move on from this difficult stage.
Sing To Your Child
Like narrating, singing also brings comparable effects. Cheerful rhythms blended with parents’ warming voices encourage them to sing along, pronouncing the words more clearly.
But remember to be careful in choosing their loving songs.
Repeat After Toddlers
For the most part, children find it interesting with our reaction to their gestures or sound. If we funnily repeat their babbling, they are prone to keep talking that word.
This method will certainly arouse gibberish talkers to practice pronouncing a new word more clearly.
At What Age Should A Child Stop Babbling?
Speech development varies depending on different babies. But in general, experts have conducted research and given common conclusions.
Most babies begin babbling during the process of 4 to 6 months. After the first birth date, they tend to finish babbling and turn into a verbal speaking phase.
Meanwhile, several babies keep gibberish until they turn 18 months.
If there are no unfortunate obstacles, language development continues as it has to be.
FAQs
When Do Toddlers Start Talking?
Most babies begin real talking around 9- to 14-month duration. Nevertheless, you can hear the first lovely sound from the 4-month point.
At that time, they tend to imitate any sound in vowel form without understanding.
Once entering the six-month phase, babies start talking real words and babbling until nine months.
What To Do If Speech Delay Happens In Your Child?
Suppose language regression happens with your three-year-old children; no need to worry much. As we mentioned above, they will hit that milestone soon.
However, some other problems may arise due to speech delays. Your children may have impaired hearing, brain injuries, or other disabilities.
When this happens, early intervention is highly necessary. It would be best to ask for a pediatrician’s professional advice.
In addition, follow the approaches mentioned above to support your child at home effectively.
In Short
As we can see, 3 year old talking gibberish is also normal for a few children with some hearing impairment, neurological system, or autism disorders.
They stop babbling more slowly than their peers, which is not wrong.
But we also recommend parents meet pediatricians for the best solutions.
Early and proper treatment helps them go through the babbling phase and learn to speak more confidently.
