Three Tips to Encourage Your Child’s Speech Development

Try these three fun ways to interact with your child to reinforce their speech development.

1. Imitation – Children love to color with crayons and markers. Color beside your child on a big blank sheet of paper. Make circles together and say, “round and round and round.” Make lines and say “uuuuuup!” and “doooown” as you draw. Make zig zag lines and teach them the word “zig zag.”
2. New words –Learning new words can be very fun. Get a large sheet of paper or the side of a big box and draw your child. Have them help you color in clothing and body words such as “eyes”, “nose”, “mouth” and “hands”. Draw their clothes and ask them “Do you want to wear a dress or pants?” or “What should be on your shirt? A dino or a princess?” Hang your picture on the wall and show it to family members and visitors reviewing words again and again.
3. Requesting –   Sometimes you might want to use a variety of materials for your project. For example, you want to make puppets. You will need yarn (hair), googly eyes, felt or construction paper (clothing), markers, glue, pompoms, scissors, or anything you have available that might help (eg. Straws for arms and legs). Keep the material visible, but out of your child’s reach. Ask “What do you need next?” If they don’t answer or don’t know, give them a choice. “Do you want hair or eyes?” Let your child point or say what they want next!