Suggestions for Parents on Facilitating Language Development

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Be an active listener and participant in the conversation the child wants to have

• Follow you child's lead.
• Ask-open-ended questions ("Tell me more")
• Encourage your child to elaborate on topics that are important to him or her.

Provide good models.

• If your child is "misarticulating" sounds, make the sound correctly yourself.
• Don't ask you child to repeat the words or the sound he or she is having trouble with.
• Correct your child by saying things like "Oh! You want soup?" instead of "Say soup, not thoup."

Talk, talk, talk about events in the child's life

• Talk about these events in a meaningful way.
• Don't talk too fast!

Provide a supportive atmosphere

• Make sure your child feels free to communicate with you.
• Provide lots of good models of speech and language.
• Be encouraging and supportive.

Read, read, read to your child

• Read to your child during infancy, toddlerhood, preschool years, and beyond.
• As you read to older children, point to the words, talk about the pictures.
• With older children, talk about words that rhyme, different letters and the sounds they make.

Have the tools of written communication available

• Have plenty of crayons, marking pencils, and paper available to your child.
• Encourage your child to use these tools to communicate.

Play sound and word games

• "How many words are the in the sentence "I like to go to the store'"
• "How many syllables are there in the word, baby? Let's clap it out - ba(clap) by(clap).
• "Let's play a word game. I'm thinking of glasses- kinds that we wear and kinds that we drink from. Can you think of another word that can mean two different things?"

If your child "dysfluences" (difficulties)

• Let your child finish each communication; don't finish sentences for him/her.
• Model easy, slower, less complex speech.
• Be patient!

Source: Speech-Language pathologist Deena Bernstein (personal communication, March 14, 2003).