In honor of the upcoming Reading Awareness month, we will be posting articles on that theme!
“What can I do to increase my child’s language and vocabulary?” This is a common question concerned parents ask. Parents, know this key tip: the most crucial step in speech and language development begins in the home! Strategies to boost language and vocabulary acquisition are best performed in your child’s natural environment. In other words, talk your way through the day! Below are several strategies to get you started.
Read to your child – as early as 3 months! Reading supports communication and speech sounds, and it introduces many concepts. It builds listening, memory, and vocabulary skills, and gives babies information about the world around them (ASHA, 2013). As you read, point out pictures to identify common objects, shapes, numbers, letters and colors. Label and repeat them to your child.
Encourage social language— Make eye contact, and imitate your child’s laughter and facial expressions. Encourage your baby to imitate your actions, such as clapping, blowing kisses, peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, itsy bitsy spider. Use words and language to support these actions. Children learn through imitating; Model labels for common objects and environmental sounds (ASHA, 2004). During play, let your child lead, so you can model language he/she is interested in (Swigert, 2004).
Paraphrase— Use clear speech that is easy for your child to model. If your child appears to not have understood what you said, try repeating it another way, using simple language. For example, say “Clean up,” instead of “Put your things away before we leave for school.” Also, avoid baby talk/neologisms! Encourage appropriate language form through modeling for your child.
Parallel-talk and Self-talk—Talk as you go through your daily routines. For example, when preparing to leave the house say, “Mommy gets her shoes”; “Daddy puts on his coat”. Also, talk during your child’s actions and activities. Act as the play-by-play broadcaster of your child’s routines. Describe what your child does, using language at the level you want your child to speak or understand (Swigert, 2004). For example, if your child is eating lunch, describe what is happening: “Sam is taking a bite of his sandwich. Sam is eating a grape. Oops he dropped one. Sam picked it up”.
Gestures and Sign Language— Use gestures such as waving and pointing to support language (ASHA, 2013). Sign language facilitates the development of verbal speech (Seal, 2010). It can be used to reduce frustration and to give your child a way to communicate his wants and needs. It can be incorporated with verbal language (Seal, 2010). See picture to the right of commonly used baby signs.
Forgetfulness, Novelty and Sabotage— First, purposely forget part of a routine your child is familiar with. For example, get juice out of the refrigerator and then hand your child the cup without pouring any juice into it. You can also add something new to a familiar routine or environment to stimulate your child’s comment to it. For example, if you are playing with blocks, put a toy food item in the box. See if your child notices, and if not comment on the new item: “Oh, what is that?” Also, intentionally interfere with or sabotage a normal routine. For example, hide a piece of the puzzle, or give your child another item other than what he wants. If he asks for a cookie, give him a fruit instead. This encourages your child to communicate his wants/needs with verbalizations or signs (Swigert, 2004).
Withhold desired objects or keep them out-of-reach—Withholding a desired object creates a situation for your child to point to an item to indicate what he wants. Then get your child to verbalize or sign the name of the desired object before you give it to them. This can be used to expand children on the single-word level to produce phrases such as “Give me ____,“ Want ____,” or “More _______”. When playing with your child with toys or objects that have pieces, don’t give all the pieces at once. Withhold some pieces to encourage verbalization (Swigert, 2004).
Expansion— Lengthen your child’s words or phrases (Swigert, 2004). For example, “Want snack!”…“Want snack? I have a snack. I have an apple. Do you want an apple?”
Questions— Ask questions that give choices (ASHA, 2013). For example, “Do you want an apple or a banana?” “Do you want to go to the park or to the library?”
Utilizing these strategies will promote communicative success for your child. These strategies can be used in daily activities and more than one can be employed at a time. For example, if you keep an item out of reach and your child labels it, you can then use expansion to create a phrase or sentence with the word. Remember, your child will learn new words best through naturalistic experiences. Therefore, these strategies are best used during your family’s daily routines!
References
American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (2013). Activities to Encourage Speech and Language Development. Retrieved from http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/parent-stim-activities.htm
Baby Signs, Inc. (2002). Baby Signs: A Quick Reference Guide. Retrieved from https://www.babysigns.com/products/product_details.cfm?id=150&cat=67
Seal, B. (2010, November 02). About Baby Signing. The ASHA Leader.
Swigert, N. B. (2004). The Early Intervention Kit. East Moline, Illinois: Linguisystems.
Daniella Giammarino, M.S., CCC-SLP
Daniella Giammarino is a New York State licensed speech-language pathologist who has received her Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Daniella also holds a Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities (TSSLD) license. As a Speech-Language Pathologist, Daniella provides evaluations and treatment children and adolescents throughout New York City with speech, language, social-pragmatic, reading, stuttering and feeding difficulties. Daniella is dedicated to providing quality services through collaboration with other professionals, as well as parents and families in order to facilitate the most success for your child. www.daniellagiammarino.com