Listen here

The impressive sensory skills of human babies are now far better recognised by researchers. If all is going well, babies are alert with all their senses from the very beginning. They are definitely hearing sounds as well as making them.

0-12 months

* Newborn babies have already used their hearing skills before birth. They show that they recognise and prefer some patterns of sounds, such as a story or song that they heard in the womb on a regular basis before birth.

* Very young infants have sharp hearing, similar to our own, but they have their work cut out to understand what all the sounds mean.

* In the early months, babies can tell the difference between many speech sounds, not only those in the language(s) spoken by their parents or carers. However, from six months onwards, babies steadily tune into only those sounds that they can hear in their family language(s).

* Babies combine information from all their senses, such as the way hearing works with vision. By six months a baby who can see both her mother and father and then hears the tape-recorded voice of one of them will look towards the parent whose voice it is.

1-2 years

* You can see toddlers make a deliberate choice to listen. They turn their head towards us when we speak or look expectant after they have said or shown something of interest.

* They are now able to make sounds deliberately in play, or encourage an adult to make sounds that the toddler enjoys hearing.

* But toddlers are sometimes very absorbed in their playful exploration and their full attention is diverted from hearing what we say.

* Familiar routines and events help toddlers to make meaning from the sounds they hear. Perhaps in a nursery the lunch arrives on a trolley and they can hear the sound of the wheels.

* In a family home, the sound of the key in the front door means that a parent is home from work and a toddler heads for the hallway in excitement.

2-3 years

* Children's hearing is crucial for their language development. Sometimes toddlers and young children will have heard what we said, but their puzzled expression shows that they do not understand. We then need to show and tell in a different way.

* Children are helped to practise their skills when we offer them opportunities to do so, by saying, 'Ooh, listen' or 'Can you hear...?'

outdoors in the garden and on local trips in the neighbourhood, as well as indoors.

* Some toddlers and young children show that they can hear clearly and already have preferences for pieces of music and popular songs. They may also show a fine dance rhythm.

Practice tips

* Be close to babies and young children; they need to be able to see and hear you for full communication.

* Create an environment in which it is easy to hear distinct sounds and voices. Young children cease to try to hear if noise levels are always high.

* Avoid continuous background noise - children are not 'stimulated' by non-stop music, radio or television. Make choices and select what to hear with the children.

* Listen attentively to what young children say and look at what they are interested in. They will follow your example, and that of older children and siblings, who have listened to them with interest and will, in turn, listen to others.

Be alert to the differences if the behaviour of babies and toddlers in your care is very different from what is described in this feature. Careful observation within the nursery and the family is crucial for adults to notice that some young children may be deaf or have hearing impairment.

It is not easy to judge when young children have some degree of hearing loss. The hearing of babies is currently tested in the health service by a simple distraction test at the age of eight or nine months, but this test is not a very reliable measure, and a pilot programme was started in 2001 using the more accurate oto-acoustic emission (OAE) test on newborns. However, this programme is not yet operating nationwide. NW See also other features in our under-threes series:

* Sound it out, 3 December 1998

* Rhythm and rhyme, 7 March 2002

* I spy, 7 February 2002