Whether your child is developing language skills at an advanced, typical, or delayed rate, there are some simple ways you can support their continued development. In fact, you may already be practicing some of these techniques without even realizing it! If so, you can feel confident in continuing to use these supports with a conscious effort. And if these techniques are new to you, try them out one at a time and they will become second nature in no time.
Language Expansion
Some parents enjoy imitating their children’s simple speech, while others may tend to use more adult-like language. Both of these strategies are wonderful for your child – either to encourage their continued efforts to communicate, or to expose them to new vocabulary and more sophisticated sentence structures. The principle of language expansion meets these two ideas in the middle. The idea is that you want to add just 1-2 pieces of information to what your child is already doing independently. If your child is using a single word, you may repeat their expression back to them, adding on another word or two. For example, your child may see a dog and exclaim, “Doggie!” To expand their language, you can respond by saying any number of two-to-three word phrases, such as “brown doggie,” “fast doggie,” “my doggie,” “doggie ball,” or “I see doggie.” By staying 1-2 steps ahead of your child, you are validating their communication attempt, while also providing an accessible next step in their language development.
Requiring Communication
As a parent well acquainted with your own child, you often understand and anticipate their needs before they even tell you what they want or need. In some circumstances, immediately meeting that need is required (think a bathroom emergency, or running late and needing to get out the door asap). However, as much as possible, in order to encourage increased communication from your child, try requiring communication. This means waiting to grant your child’s request until they have made an attempt to communicate it to you. Requiring communication will look different from one child to the next. For some, a simple glance in your direction is a big, new step in communicating. For others, using a complete sentence to make a request is how their language is growing. Your child may simply need you to wait a few seconds to cue them to make their request, or it might be important that you tell them or show them what you want them to do. Wherever your child is at in their language development, a good rule of thumb is to attempt the desired communication just 2-3 times before granting their request. This provides them with ample opportunity to practice their communication, without becoming too frustrated if they are unsuccessful after several attempts.
Parallel Play
It may not seem like it, but play is a skill! And it is a skill highly linked to language development. When you play with your child, you automatically are also exercising their communication skills and modeling new language. To support your child’s language and play development, follow their lead and engage in their interests. As you play together or side-by-side, try playing with their toys in a “new” way. For example, if they are lining up blocks, you can model stacking and crashing them down, organizing them by color, or arranging them in shapes. If your child is not interested in your play, continue to engage in what they are doing and try something new, or try the same play again later. All the while, be sure to narrate what you and your child are doing, providing language input and examples of how they can verbally express their play. For young children, environmental sounds (e.g., woof woof, crash!) and silly, unexpected play are often motivating!
If you would like to learn more about how to support your child’s language development, give our pediatric speech-language therapy clinic a call!