5 (Easy) Ways to Help Your Child Learn to Talk – Tips From a Speech-Language Pathologist!

Hello friends!

My mission, which I’ve recently tried to be laser-focused on lately, is to add value to your life as a mother or medical wife.

And I’ve been thinking.

What better way to help you struggling mamas out there than to teach you something that I’ve helped HUNDREDS of families with in my professional world?

Before I plunged myself into the depths of stay-at-home-mom life, I worked as a Speech-Language Pathologist (MA, CCC-SLP) with kids in early intervention and in an outpatient pediatric clinic for 6 years. During my years in practice, the most common referrals we received were from concerned parents and pediatricians regarding children who were slow to begin talking.

Today’s post is all about helping families to help their children learn to talk!

I know plenty of moms who notice their kids struggling but aren’t sure what to do.

My first recommendation, always, ALWAYS is to talk to you doc! If you’re concerned about your child’s language development, a speech/language evaluation is not going to hurt, and at the very least will provide you with more information!

But if you’re not quite to that point, or you’ve been told by your physician that your child is not delayed (but you’re still concerned), or are just at the early stages where you are (impatiently) waiting to see if your child’s speech will start blossoming…any moment now…you’re not alone.

So, today, I’m covering a few strategies that every parent can implement TODAY to start helping their child take steps toward improved communication.

Basics that you need to know

The Importance of Interaction

The foundation for learning to talk is INTERACTION. Communication is a two-way street, friends. If we don’t have anyone to talk to, we’re not going to be practicing much. So all of the strategies involved in helping your child to communicate include you getting on your little guy or gal’s level and being face to face with him/her and having an interaction.

The Importance of Thinking Like a Speech-Language Pathologist

Figuring out how to best help your child begins with first identifying where they are now with their skills. Think about how they communicate with you. When they become consistent at one level, they may be ready to start tackling the next. Here’s the general progression:

Non-verbal communication (i.e. pointing, eye contact, grunting)

Sounds (i.e. “uh oh,” “whee!,” “yay”)

Signs/single words (i.e. “duck,” “more,” “up”)

Two-word phrases (“up please”)

Longer phrases/sentences (“I want to go outside”)

Once you have an idea about which communication stage they’re in now, then it’s easier to identify what the next step in the progression is, and slowly work toward that. You don’t want to frustrate your child by having unrealistic expectations for their communication. For example, a child that is barely imitating animal sounds during play would not be also working on a full sentence request like “May I have more raisins, please.”

And just be aware that the communication stage not always crystal clear, so don’t be too frustrated if this is difficult to figure out. Identifying your child’s current stage of communication may take some help from a Speech-Language Pathologist.

The Importance of Having Fun

Keeping communication fun for your child can help speed up the process of learning to talk. Celebrate any attempt at appropriate communication (even if his/her word doesn’t sound exactly like you want or are hoping his/her words to sound – we’ll talk more about how your child’s speech sounds next week!!)

You want communication to be a rewarding, and not frustrating, experience. In fact, if a child is frustrated, it may cause him/her to shut down and avoid attempts to communicate. So be sure to give your child a lot of praise as they learn.

I also avoid requests for communication for this very reason and teach families to do the same. Asking a child to “Say ‘xxxx’” is not helpful when working with a child just beginning to communicate. It’s a hard habit for some parents to break, but you can do it!

Let’s get to some of the most important strategies to help those little ones!

5 Ways To Help Your Child Today

1. Play with your child. No, but seriously. Sit on the floor. Position yourself so you can see their face, and find toys that interest them. Talk about the toys. Really, truly, prioritizing play can make a huge difference in your child’s communication.

2. Speak Simply. If I’m working with a child who isn’t using words yet, I’m going to play with them while doing my best to use fun sounds, single words or 1-2 word phrases (instead of sentences), so that there’s a greater chance that the child will have the capacity to try to imitate me. You can do this, too!

If I’m talking to a child using long sentences all the time, it will be harder for him/her to pick out and learn the most important words (the nouns and verbs) in my sentences.

It sounds so. simple. to shorten your phrases, but it’s truly not easy for a lot of parents. You can record yourself in play to see how you’re really doing with this!

And even with shorter phrases, you can draw even more attention to the most important words in your phrase by highlighting those nouns and verbs with fun enthusiasm.

3. Avoid asking a million questions. Use comments instead. It is human nature to try to interact by asking questions, even with kids who aren’t talking back to us. I’m sure you do it or have noticed someone who overuses questions with a child who isn’t responding, i.e., “Is that a ball?” “Do you like your teddy bear?” “Is your car going fast?” Instead, try REALLY hard to cut out the question words and use single words or phrases, i.e. “ball,” “or “it’s a ball!” It’s a tough habit to break, but can be incredibly valuable to a child if you can tame the question-beast.

4. Give your child the things they really want, but only one or two at a time. This strategy is great for teaching a child to request appropriately. Find something they really like (like goldfish crackers or blocks or bubbles). Then, hold up the item/snack, label it, and then wait a few seconds. If the child makes any attempt to imitate the word, cheer and hand over the item right away. Repeat. If they don’t imitate you, that’s telling you that this level of communication is a little beyond their current abilities. So, like I said earlier, you want to simplify so that they can be successful. One way I simplify requesting is to help the child use sign language to obtain the item. Teaching a child to sign is a great way to get him/her started on appropriate communication if the child is not yet ready to imitate words! I use apps to help me learn specific signs. My fav is ASL Dictionary ($4.99) but it looks like The ASL App (free) is a new, popular option. Teaching a child to sign can seem a bit tricky, but keep at it and be consistent. I wish I could show up at your house to help all of you with this!

Be sure to remember that if a child is getting frustrated, to move along and come back to it later. We want communication to be fun and rewarding!

5. Limit Screen Time. Remember how I said that interaction is the key for kids to learn how to talk? Well. Screen time can reduce the amount of time a child is interacting. This is often one of my very first recommendations if I see a child who is otherwise developing typically, but is slow to learn to speak. The current guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics say to limit screen time to 1-hour of high-quality children’s programming for kids between the ages of 2 & 5. Kids younger than 24 months should only use screen time for video chatting. See the statement here.

My Favorite Resource

The Hanen Centre is one of my favorite resources for parents helping their children to talk (I used to teach a couple of the courses to parents). The “It Takes Two to Talk” guidebook and DVD is an excellent place to start for more ways to help your child. Or check out the website to see if a full course is offered near you.

________________________________________

I could go on (probably for days) about all of the fun ways to work with children on communicating! But go ahead and start with these and see how it goes!

I decided to do a video tutorial to go along with this post:

(VIDEO): 5 (Easy) Ways to Help Your Child Learn to Talk – Tips From a Speech-Language Pathologist

You can also be a founding subscriber to my itty bitty YouTube Channel and say you were there from the beginning 😂: My YouTube Channel

Hopefully it helps you to really see what I’m describing!

Let me know what strategy you love most! And ask any questions you have down below! (And I suspect you will have them!)

Thanks for joining me, friends! I’ll be back next week for one more post about speech therapy “stuff” to help coach you through learning more about those errors your child makes when they talk, and the difference between errors that are cute and those that are concerning.

Love you guys so, so much –

Honestly,

AM 🙂 ❤️

More About Me: Hi! I’m Ann Marie, a blogging mama of 3 tiny gals, and a wife to a busy Orthopedic Surgeon. You can find me right here for a weekly smattering of inspiration for your motherhood journey, home, marriage (I see you other medical wives!), style, and beauty. You’ll find me most active on Instagram or Facebook for life between blog posts. And I truly can’t wait to see you there, friend. ❤️💋

To connect, shoot me an email at honestlyannmarie@gmail.com ❤️