If your child is a late talker, you may be feeling a little lost right now. Speech therapy for kids can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. In this blog post, we will give you some tips on how to help expand your late talker’s language. Keep in mind that every child is different, so don’t worry if your child doesn’t follow the same pattern as other late talkers.
Children learn at their own pace. Just focus on providing opportunities for them to communicate and learn!
The best way to help expand your late talker’s language is to provide opportunities for them to communicate. This means giving them chances to practice using their words and sounds.
You can do this by talking with them throughout the day, reading books together, or even playing simple games that involve communication. It’s important to make sure that they are getting plenty of chances to practice using their words so that they can start to help develop their early language. Here are some speech therapy tips to get you started.
Strategies to Encourage Language:
Offer Choices
One way to encourage your child to use more words is by offering them choices.
For example, you can offer your child a choice such as “What would you like to eat? An apple or a banana?” When your child makes a choice be sure to reinforce the choice by offering praise after they have made that choice in order to encourage them the next time they are presented with another choice.
For more ideas on how to offer choices for your child check out this blog: https://www.speechtreeco.com/blogs/therapy-ideas/offering-choices-in-speech-therapy
Create Challenges
Another great way to help get our kids talking is by presenting them with challenges. We can do this by placing a toy or part of a toy just out of their reach. This will encourage them to ask you for help or maybe even get them to say the word and label the toy.
Again, we want to encourage our kiddos by providing them plenty of praise for even trying to point or look at the toy. This will help encourage them to communicate more.
Check out this blog to discover some fun ways to integrate STEM concepts into fun speech activities: https://speechisbeautiful.com/2017/08/incorporate-stem-challenges-speech-therapy/
Model Language
One of the best things we can do is give our kiddos plenty of words so they can absorb everything happening in their environment. We can do this during a familiar routine or while our kiddos are playing. Remember to use simple and repetitive language because our kids really enjoy having those opportunities.
For more information on modeling language you can refer to this blog post:
https://www.lumierechild.com/lumiere-childrens-therapy/2016/01/11/child-speech-therapy-modeling
Wait
While it can be hard and challenging for parents, one of the best things we can do is give our kiddos a chance to take a few seconds to process what’s being told to them and have an opportunity to come up with an answer.
So if you ask them: “Are you hungry?” Try counting in your head to three, and if they don’t respond the first time, feel free to ask again. The repetition can eventually help them craft a response.
For more tips on how to use the wait time to help with language see this blog post:
https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/3-steps-for-using-wait-time-to-improve-treatment-outcomes/full/
New Words
Another way to help expand your late talker’s language is to give them opportunities to learn new words. This can be done by introducing new vocabulary in a variety of ways. You can point out new words when you’re reading books together, or you can teach them new words through songs and games.
You can even just have conversations with them about new words that you’ve learned. The important thing is to provide opportunities for them to learn new vocabulary in a way that is fun and engaging for them.
What to do Next?
Speech therapy can be a great way to help expand your late talker’s language. If you’re looking for more ideas on how to help your child, we recommend talking to a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP). They can give you specific tips and strategies that are tailored to your child’s specific needs.
Children develop at a different pace and if you’re worried about a speech delay it may be best to talk to your pediatrician and see if they recommend a speech therapy evaluation.
We hope these tips have been helpful! Remember, every child is different, so don’t worry if your child isn’t following the same pattern as other late talkers. Just focus on providing opportunities for them to communicate and learn, and they will make progress in no time.