The Child and Family Development team of 9 speech therapists love to work with little ones with emerging expressive and receptive language skills.
Often, parents ask what they can do at home to help kids 2 years old and under stay on track with development. Amy Gossett, MA CCC-SLP shares these 7 easy tips from the HELP® books by Linguisystems.
1. Talk Talk Talk! Talk to your child ALOT during everyday activities such as meal time, laundry, and running errands. Label everything you see in the environment such as toys, foods, vehicles.
2. Talk about what YOU are doing. Talk about what YOUR CHILD is doing. Use short sentences such as “Getting in the car.” “Drinking some juice.”
3. Read lots and lots of books with simple pictures. Talk about what you see, and what the characters are doing.
4. Listen to your child and accept their attempts at talking. This is reinforcing the child to keep trying!
5. Provide opportunities for your child to talk. Place food/drink/toy items out of reach. If your child reaches for it, model the language “Eat cookie” “Drink milk” “play ball.” Repeat a few times and wait for the child to try.
6. Expand what your child says. Repeat what they say and add more. If your child says “out,” you say “go outside?”
7. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat! For example if the child is banging on the door to go outside, but doesn’t say the word “OUT” yet. Pause before opening it, and model, “out, out, let’s go out.”
Read more about our speech therapy services here.
Visit the Resources tab on our website to access helpful developmental charts.
