'Beer', 'cat', 'Hoover' among the most unusual first words spoken by kids

London, Jan 4 (ANI): 'Beer', 'cat' and 'Hoover' are among the most unusual first words uttered by babies when they learn to speak, a new YouGov survey has revealed.

The poll of 1,015 parents of tots aged one to seven, published by England's first Communications Champion Jean Gross, also found that nearly 95 percent parents remembered the first word spoken by their child.

Almost 15 percent parents said their child's first word was "dadda" or "dada", while 10 percent reported their child began talking by saying "mamma" or "mama".

After the variations on "mum" and "dad", "cat" was the most common word as listed by 2 percent parents.

It was also seen that children usually start speaking by the time they are 10-11 months old.

For nearly six out of 10 parents talking, listening and understanding were the most essential skills their children should develop when they were young, while 26percent gave importance to interacting with others, 11percent wanted their tots to develop reading skills, 2percent felt numeracy skills were the most important and 1percent gave preference to writing skills.

"Our ability to communicate is fundamental and underpins everything else. Learning to talk is one of the most important skills a child can master in the 21st century. The proportion of children who have difficulty learning to talk and understand speech is high, particularly among boys," the Telegraph quoted Gross, as saying.

She added: "It is essential that all children get the help they need from skilled professionals as early as possible. The lack of this is cause for great concern because the results of this poll shows that parents place learning to talk and listen as a top priority for their children, whatever their social class, and do a great deal to help them learn to communicate."

The poll also discovered that many parents tried to improve their child's speech and language skills by encouraging to look at picture books, telling them stories, playing word games and singing nursery rhymes. (ANI)