Ways To Help “Late-Talkers” Develop Their Language Skills
While every child is unique and each develops at different rates, there are generally-accepted guidelines of when we expect children to reach certain milestones. If your child doesn’t reach those milestones on time, one of which happens to be communication, you may begin to worry that your child has some sort of speech delay.
When Should My Child Begin Speaking?
Generally children say their first word when they are around 12 months old.
If you notice that your child has still not started blabbering words like “mama” or/and “dada” by their first birthday, there is nothing to worry. There are innumerable options out there that will help your late talker develop and improve his/her speech skills. Special education courses by reputed institutes comprise of this particular chapter in their curriculum to help their trainees learn the correct methods to effectively guide “late-talkers”.
5 Ways to Help “Late Talkers”build their communication skills
1. Self Talk
A simple yet effective activity, self talk can be done in any location that too without using any materials. Self talk refers to the act of talking about random things that you are seeing, doing, or hearing.
For example, if you are taking your child for a walk, you can talk about things you see along the way (e.g. "I see a tree. I can hear birds chirping. I can see vehicles moving."). You can also do a lot of self-talk in the presence of your child at home too. For instance, while cooking or doing other household chores, you can narrate the steps in the process (e.g. "I’m mixing the batter. I’m beating the eggs. I am cleaning the floor"). Teachers, you can tell your students whatever you are doing at the moment and help them learn new words and phrases in the process.
Although self talk may sound boring and de-motivating at first, yet you will find that the child is learning a lot from you in this way. The self talk method is great and easy way toacquaint your child to new vocabulary and teaches him/her to form words into correct phrases and sentences.
2. Parallel Talk
Quite similar to self talk, parallel talk is the process when you start narrating things you can see, hear and witness your child doing those. The only thing that differentiates parallel talk with self talk is that with parallel talk, you will talk about things from your child’s perspective.
Therefore, if you find that the child is building with blocks, you could say something like, “The tower is quite big.” When you talk about activities or objects that your child is already engaged in, you are increasing the chances of them listening to you and they become more interested in the words and phrases you are using, thus helping them to learn the vocabulary more quickly.
3. Choices
Start providing your late talker with choices, and see how things start falling into the right places. Providing choices is proven to be an excellent way to encourage communication development in small children. So, how and when can you use this method with your little adorable? Don’t worry, it is quite easy! Start by holding up two things such as a rhymes book or a coloring book that your child likes. As you hold up the items, name each one as you show it to your child. Then, ask the child the item that they want. If your child tries to communicate their preference at least with gestures, such as by pointing to or looking at it, give them that particular item, but by saying out its name aloud. If possible repeat the sentence so that the child understands what he is asking for (e.g. “Here’s the coloring books.”).
4. Placement of Toys
In most households with children, toys are to be found everywhere and easily accessible to your kids. If thesame things happen at your home, try moving some of your child’s favorite toys out of reach but still in view. By doing this and placing toys out of reach, you are encouraging your child to ask for them. By asking, some children who have still not started talking can simply look and point at the desired toy. If that is the case, get the toy and name them as you give the item to them (e.g. “cars”, “blocks”, etc.). Teachers can follow the same thing in their classrooms.
5. Time Delay
Most of the times, when we see our child facing delay in talking, we start inundating them with words and phrases as a means to encourage communication. Although it is advisable to talk to encourage communication (as discussed in the previous strategies), it’s also equally significant for you to be quiet. As you sit in brief silence, you are effectively using the time delay technique.
With the time delay technique, you need to pause or wait a few seconds to give your child the time to attempt some form of communication. As your child takes his time, try not to prompt any language models, ask questions, or anticipate what your child wants or needs. For instance, if your child is trying to get a toy that is out of reach, it naturally comes to you to come and help your child and immediately get it and give it to him. However, the situation is indeed a test of your patience - resist the urge to help your child; instead, watch the activity unfold. By waiting and engaging in the time delay, you are waiting to see if your child will attempt to communicate what they want or need.
Conclusion
After going through this blog, hope you have learnt how by using these simple ways in your daily lives, you can encourage and motivate your late talker’s language development and output and at the same time pick which strategies will be easiest for you to implement on a day-to-day basis. Special education courses are something that are extremely beneficial. Remember, the more consistently you follow these strategies, the more likely your child is going to reap the benefits.
