Between the ages of twelve months and twenty-four months the child with perfect hearing makes rapid progress in learning to understand what is said to him, and by the time he is two years old has usually begun to speak many words and sentences in a more or less imperfect way. This has been accomplished principally by the mother's constant talking to her baby. If she has had the good sense to always speak in simple but complete sentences, and to avoid the foolish "baby talk" unfortunately affected by some people in addressing little children, the results of her daily and hourly talk is the possession by the child of a considerable vocabulary of words whose meaning he knows, and a less number that he is able himself to speak in a rather imperfect way. In what respects should the mother modify her treatment of the baby if she suspects that his hearing is defective? She should not talk to him any the less on this account, but, on the contrary, she should talk to him more. She should, however, speak a little louder, a little nearer to him, possibly a little more slowly and distinctly, exercising the greatest caution, however, not to exaggerate speech into unnatural facial contortions, or to accompany it by gestures. To fall into the habit of mouthing and gesticulating, making faces and motions, will defeat entirely the purpose of all efforts to develop an understanding of speech by the child. Unfortunately, such exaggerated and absurd speech is a natural and very prevalent fault. To avoid it is absolutely necessary, but requires constant watchfulness, as there is a strong temptation to try to make speech-reading easy for the child by opening the mouth wide and making extraordinary movements of the tongue. The object aimed at is to lead the child to interpret natural, everyday speech, and such facial contortions and exaggerations cut him off from practice in reading natural speech. This point cannot be too strongly emphasized. Speak naturally and normally _always_ to the deaf child.