Three Things You Can Do Today to Help Your Baby to Talk.

As a special education teacher, I have seen how young children ages newborn to five learn to how to communicate and interact with their families. Over the years, parents have expressed concerns regarding their child’s ability to talk.

Now, I define the word talk as the child’s ability to use words in order to communicate their needs and wants in a functional manner; for example a may child use words to request attention, or to participate in conversational exchanges.  

Communication is defined as the ability to receive messages and to send messages.   Children this young are learning for the very first time how to both understand and use language in order to communicate within their social world. 

Most human beings use words “talk” in order to communicate these messages, however we also use eye contact and gestures (i.e. point, pull, extend). 

Here are Three things you can do today to get your child  to use more words in order to communicate with you. The first thing you want to do is look at how does your child try to get your attention? 

Children this young may point, pull, extend items, use eye contact, cry and they may also use words.  I want you to take about 30 seconds, and think about how did your child try to get your attention today? What specifically did they do? 

Did they point to an item, pull you to a location, cry or use a word? 

The second thing I want you to do is to look at, how did I respond when my child tried to get my attention? Did I provide my child with the desired item in silence, did I say the name of the item out loud, did I ask my child a question (i.e. what do you want) or did I require my child to use words. Your response to how your child tries to get your attention is going to determine how they communicate with you in the future. 

The third thing you want to do is create an environment in which your response is going to help your child to use words in the future. As the parent, you have 100% control of the child’s environment. You are the only one that has the ability to create an environment in which your child hears words. Remember young children are still learning how to use language for the first time and they depend on us to teach them how and what to say in specific situations. 

Let’s say your baby pulls you to the kitchen as this is a common practice in your home. I would suggest that you respond to the pulling by saying these words out loud “mommy come/daddy come.” This way  your child is learning what words to use when they want your attention in that particular context. in this way, you have changed your environment so that your child hears language while they pull you instead of maybe they just typically pull you in silence. 

 So to review the first thing you want do is look at how does your child tries to get your attention. 

The second thing you want do is look at how you respond when your child tries to get your attention. 

The third thing you want to do is make sure that create an environment in which your child is going to hear words so that they can use them in the future when they want to get your attention.

Questions?? Please email me at Jasmine@mjscds or schedule a free consultation today.