This might sound obvious, but the best way for your little one to learn language is to hear lots of language! Narrating what you are doing and telling baby what they can see helps them to make links between the words being said and the objects/actions they relate to. It might feel a bit silly to start with, especially when baby is tiny and not talking back, but the more you practice the more natural it will feel.
Offering choices has two benefits – it provides you with an extra opportunity to model language, and also gives your little one a reason to starting communicating with you. You can start this even when baby is tiny – an easy way to start is to offer choices of clothes/outfits e.g. “red tshirt or blue tshirt”. Whenever you offer the choices present the object as you say the option. When baby is tiny and not yet pointing or talking, choose the option they look at the longest. The more you repeat this, the more baby will understand that they are being “listened to” which reinforces communication as a positive experience.
As adults, it can be common to spring in to “test” mode when we talk to babies and children – “what is it?” “what have you got?” “what are you doing?”, but they will benefit much more from us using a “teach” mode of communicating. This method uses comments in place of the questions used above for example “it’s a cat” “you’ve got a dog” “you’re eating” (or, even better, just “cat” “dog” “eating”). This way you get to model the language, reduce the expectance on your little one to provide a response and talk about what they are doing/interested in. Try imagining you are providing a voiceover narration of their play to make this easier.
Young children can often take longer to process what they have heard and generate a response than we think, so we need to give them longer to respond. One way to help with this can be to count to 10 in your head, to give them that processing time. A good way to get started with this is to pause at the end of sentences, especially when it is something they have heard a lot or has repeated language for example Nursery Rhymes (e.g. “Old MacDonald had a …..”) or books – we love Julia Donaldson books in our house and these have lots of lovely repeated phrases you can practice this with. If your little one can’t fill in the gap, you can do that for them.
Using signs alongside your spoken language has been shown to support language development as it provides visual representations of the words. Children are able to learn to sign much earlier than they are able to start talking. This shows them the benefits of communication and can give them more motivation to develop their spoken language.
If you’d like to chat more about anything mentioned in this article, do feel free to contact me (beckym@totsplay.co.uk). There’s also lots of information on https://sy-talkingtogether.co.uk/ If you are worried about your child’s language development, contact your Health Visitor.
If you’re interested in learning some signs to use with your little one, baby sign is just one of the fun activities we do at Tots Play Doncaster North. For more information, and to book, visit totsplay.co.uk/doncasternorth. Classes run by a registered Speech and Language Therapist.
Sponsored editorial blog post by Becky at Tots Play Doncaster North, who is a registered Speech and Language Therapist
