Speech therapist mom has a simple song to teach your baby new words — many parents are thanking her

Efforts to encourage speech in children from an early age positively impact their cognitive development and communication skills. Speech language therapy is a specialized intervention aimed at helping kids with communication difficulties and language disorders, per Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital. Speech therapist mom, Alexis Divers, who goes by @happybabbler on TikTok, demonstrated how she helps her baby learn new words with an interesting parenting moment. As her baby lay down, she motioned with the baby’s hands that resembled the words while speaking them repeatedly. Divers explained how this facilitates speech development in babies and toddlers.

“This is big, big, big. This is small, small, small,” sang the mom while moving her baby’s little arms. In little overlay texts, Divers explained that this method taught children the use of functional language and concepts like opposites and positions. Moreover, she repeated the words in a sing-song manner to help them learn new vocabulary while also creating an interaction and connection with her child. “Try this song to help your baby/toddler learn new words,” she hinted in the video. “This is short, short, short. This is tall, tall, tall,” Divers said while motioning up and down with the baby. 

The fun exercise included other opposite words like fast, slow, yes, no, up, and down. She also taught her baby how to identify square and round shapes and left and right–something even adults struggle with. The speech therapist's mom concluded the video with a “great big hug” and kissed her child’s forehead to indicate a goodnight kiss. In the caption, Divers joked, “I know we millennial parents are short on nursery rhymes.” Meanwhile, the post received 87,000 hearts and comments about her fun approach and parents relating to it. 

A fellow mom, @corbinbrooks_, revealed that she and her 9-month-old baby also “love this.” In addition to the words in the video, she said, the duo also do “dark and bright (using hands to cover his eyes for ‘dark’. He always has a huge smile when we uncover them for ‘bright’). Love your version, too!” While @mrrobinbirdie said, “This is great. If feeling lost, there is a plethora of nursery rhymes out there! This is a precursor to reading!” However, another mom, @coco_byrn2.16 shared, “Bold of you to assume my boy will stay for this long. Man is constantly moving.” 

“I’ve given up on nursery rhymes. My baby gets a performance of Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, or Avril Lavigne,” mused @the.sophiamurray. According to Forbrain, speech-language pathologists diagnose and treat childhood speech and disorders to help children speak clearly, use language, and interact confidently both at home and outside. Some common speech disorders that children struggle with are language disorders, speech sound disorders, fluency disorders, and voice disorders. Parents must pay close attention to their children’s speech and communication and look for early signs like delayed speech development, pronunciation difficulties, problems with understanding and following instructions, naming and recognizing letters, among others. 

You can follow @happybabbler on TikTok for more videos.