Children develop at their own rate. Some children walk and talk early, while others take longer. Most children learn skills within an age range, such as between 12 and 18 months. A child’s language development is likely to progress more rapidly when they are given frequent opportunities to interact with both children and adults. Below are strategies to help encourage language development with your child.
Language Facilitation
Presented below are a few techniques caregivers can use at home to facilitate language development in their young child.
1. Modeling: The caregiver waits for the child to initiate an activity. After the child has made his/her choice, they focus on the activity together. During the activity, the caregiver converses with the child about different aspects of the activity, using short, simple sentences. Two techniques are:
a.) Self-talk: The caregiver talks about what he/she is doing. (i.e. “I build tower”)
b.) Parallel-talk: The caregiver talks about what the child is doing. (i.e.”Tom push car”)
2. Decrease questioning: The caregiver should refrain from asking the child an excessive number of questions. This will decrease pressure on the child. Typically, excessive question-asking does not facilitate the development of longer, more complex sentences. Instead, excessive questioning can lead to short and “empty” responses from the child. For every question the caregiver asks the child, they should model 3 comments about what the child is seeing/doing.
3. Verbalizations: When the child verbalizes any words that can be understood, the caregiver can do the following:
a.) Repetitions: The caregiver repeats back to the child the exact words which he/she just spoke. This will convey to the child that the “listener” has heard what he/she said. Also, when the words are repeated back, the child will feel reinforced for the act of talking.
b.) Expansions: After the words have been repeated back to the child, the caregiver uses these words in a new grammatically complete sentence (i.e. child says, “doggie”; caregiver says, “The doggie walks.”)
c.) Extension: If the child imitates the expanded model, the imitations are immediately repeated and extended. (i.e. child says, “Doggie walk.”; caregiver says, “Doggie walks.” “The black doggie walks.”)
4. Turn-taking: The caregiver should develop a “conversational” framework between the child’s utterances and his own, by simply taking turns when speaking.
Specific ways to encourage language development
1. TALK: Talk to your child when cuddling, feeding, bathing, dressing, etc. Talk about what you are doing, where you are going, and who or what you will see.
2. Play finger games: Use nursery rhymes such as “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” and demonstrate gestures while you sing. Encourage the child to imitate you.
3. Look and play in a mirror: Name and describe facial features and other body parts. Point to named body parts.
4. Hum, sing, and talk throughout the day: Encourage child to imitate the sounds and words you say.
5. Read: Point to common objects and name them. Encourage child to repeat your words. Sometimes “reading” is simply describing the pictures in a book without following the written words.
6. Imitate daily living activities: Sing about what you are doing (i.e. washing face) Sing,”This is the way we wash our face, wash our face, wash our face…early in the morning”
7. Play the name game: Have child reach for, point at, or obtain common objets that are safe, by asking, “Where’s the ______?”. Then reconfirm what the object is. Say, “Yes, this is the ____.” Repeat if child shows interest.