The key to good phonemic development is for the parents to spend much time talking to and around their baby.
- Ventriloquism is not "throwing" the voice. It is, not moving the lips or the jaw. Even the consonants that require the front-most constriction can be accomplished by the tongue with some practice and will sound just fine.
These are just a few of the distinctive features (building blocks of phonemes) that the baby is equipped to hear at birth.
It remains for the parents to provide the materials (speech sounds) for the child to maintain and strengthen these listening skills. The child who sits alone for long hours in a crib will be at a disadvantage relative to the child who has doting parents hovering about and talking to and chatting about their child.
And if one of the parents is speaking another language, better yet for the baby's developing phonemic structure.
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