Tips for Parents:
1. Read, Read, Read! Choose colorful books with large simple photos or drawings. Talk about the pictures rather than reading the text.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/reading-together-tips-parents-children-speech-and-language-problems
2. Wait, Wait, Wait! Don’t anticipate your child’s needs. Delay your response to your child’s pointing, gestures or babbling when he/she wants things. Pretend you don’t understand what he/she wants. Allow enough time for him/her to process information and find the words that he/she needs to say.
3. Self Talk. Talk out-loud about what you are seeing, hearing, doing and feeling when your child is in earshot, this will help increase receptive language.
4. Parallel Talk. Talk out-loud about what is happening to your child. Describe what he/she is doing, seeing, hearing and feeling.
5. Praise your child. Respond to your child’s speech attempts with non-verbal and verbal praise. This will encourage him/her to try and communicate more.
6. Expansion Modeling. Try and add one to two words to what your child says when responding back to him/her. For Example: Child says “cookie” and you say “cookie more.”
7. Sing to your child. Children love music! Songs promote vocal play, imitation, attention, listening and speech. Examples: “The Itisy Bitsy Spider,” “Twinkle, Twinkle little star” or “The Wheels on The Bus.”
8. Use a variety of words. Emphasize action words (sleep, eat, run, push, squeeze, break), descriptive words (hard, small, cold, funny, sleepy), location words (in, up, down, on, under), words about belonging (my, your, her, Daddy’s), and feeling words (happy, sad, mad, sick), as well nouns or names of things (doll, ball, cup, dog).
9. Ask open-ended questions. Encourage your child to use his/her words and to avoid answering yes/no questions. For example ask; “What do you want?” as opposed to “Do you want juice?”
10. Don’t pressure your child. Communication should be fun and interactive. Don’t ask your child more than 3 times to answer a question. Children tune out when they feel pressured.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/reading-together-tips-parents-children-speech-and-language-problems
2. Wait, Wait, Wait! Don’t anticipate your child’s needs. Delay your response to your child’s pointing, gestures or babbling when he/she wants things. Pretend you don’t understand what he/she wants. Allow enough time for him/her to process information and find the words that he/she needs to say.
3. Self Talk. Talk out-loud about what you are seeing, hearing, doing and feeling when your child is in earshot, this will help increase receptive language.
4. Parallel Talk. Talk out-loud about what is happening to your child. Describe what he/she is doing, seeing, hearing and feeling.
5. Praise your child. Respond to your child’s speech attempts with non-verbal and verbal praise. This will encourage him/her to try and communicate more.
6. Expansion Modeling. Try and add one to two words to what your child says when responding back to him/her. For Example: Child says “cookie” and you say “cookie more.”
7. Sing to your child. Children love music! Songs promote vocal play, imitation, attention, listening and speech. Examples: “The Itisy Bitsy Spider,” “Twinkle, Twinkle little star” or “The Wheels on The Bus.”
8. Use a variety of words. Emphasize action words (sleep, eat, run, push, squeeze, break), descriptive words (hard, small, cold, funny, sleepy), location words (in, up, down, on, under), words about belonging (my, your, her, Daddy’s), and feeling words (happy, sad, mad, sick), as well nouns or names of things (doll, ball, cup, dog).
9. Ask open-ended questions. Encourage your child to use his/her words and to avoid answering yes/no questions. For example ask; “What do you want?” as opposed to “Do you want juice?”
10. Don’t pressure your child. Communication should be fun and interactive. Don’t ask your child more than 3 times to answer a question. Children tune out when they feel pressured.