5 Tips for Building Language Understanding in Babies and Toddlers
I get a lot of questions from parents who have a child with language delay about what they could be doing to get ahead of the game with their babies and toddlers. I get really excited when I get this question! First, I think it’s fantastic when families are proactive. Secondly, I get excited when parents recognize the importance of language development even before their kids are talking.
Long before your child is ready to start using words, she needs to understand what words mean. By supporting your child’s understanding of language, you are laying the foundation necessary for your child to be able to express verbally when she’s ready. Here are 5 tips for helping to develop understanding of language in babies and toddlers:
1) TALK to your baby. As silly as you may sometimes feel, it is never too early to talk to your baby. Talk to your baby about what you’re doing at the grocery store, talk to your baby while you wash your hands, talk to your baby while you chop vegetables, tell your baby how you are feeling. By talking about what you’re doing, your baby will begin to connect objects, actions and concepts with the words we use for them.
2) Read to your baby! Some parents are surprised when I recommend reading to even very young babies, but I am firm believer that even newborns benefit from reading with their parents. There is research that shows that the children who were read to earliest in life tend to be those with the highest language skills later on. Very young babies will be listening to the cadence of your voice and learning to recognize the sounds we have in English. This will help them to decide what’s important for them to tune into. Talking about the pictures is an excellent way of building vocabulary. Reading and re-reading the same books gives your little ones the repetition they need to build their understanding and may give you opportunities to talk about things you may not otherwise encounter in your day-to-day life!
3) Sing! Singing to your baby is another great way to promote language learning. Music activates different parts of the brain than talking does, so singing helps your baby to make connections differently. Songs can be a great tool for building understanding of language associated with routines. For example, I like to make up silly songs about going up the stairs, changing diapers, bath time etc. They don’t have to be complex (for example, my “up the stairs” song is just “here we go up the stairs” over and over again to the tune of “here we go loopty loo”) and they don’t have to be on tune. Your baby will love it no matter what it sounds like!
4) Watch to see what your baby is interested in and let your baby lead. If your baby is interested in looking at the ticking clock across the room while you are trying to talk about something else, talk about what he’s attending to (e.g. I hear ticking! That clock’s hand is moving!). By paying attention to what your child is interested in, you’re seizing an opportunity to provide the language your child would use to talk about their interest if they could.
5) Make the important words stand out. When talking to babies and young children, it’s important to use full sentences so that they learn about the grammatical markers that go into sentences and how sentences should be constructed. That said, it can sometimes be tricky for really young children to pick out the important information from a long string of words. So, to make it easier for babies and toddlers to pick up on the words you want them to understand, make them a little bit louder and longer than the other words in the sentence (e.g. Let’s OPEN the DOOR).
Parent training can be a useful tool for parents who are worried about whether their kids are on track and to provide strategies to build on existing skills and develop new ones. If you are concerned that your baby or toddler is not meeting his communication milestones or just want some additional support, contact us!
