Tips for Parents

Ways to Help Your Child Learn to Speak

One of the most important things you can do is read daily to your child – stories, poems, nursery rhymes, etc.
Teach your child simple songs with very repetitive words.
Give your child time to listen when giving him instructions. Be sure you have his attention, and encourage a verbal or vocal response.
Don’t expect perfection. Be ready to praise effort, even though it falls short of the goal.
Reward all efforts to talk. Smile, nod, repeat what you DID understand, and follow that with a clarification question. (e.g., “You are talking about the dog. What did he do?”) You may need to help him re-phrase what he wants to say.
Take advantage of language stimulation opportunities in everyday living events. Talk about what you are doing, what you see, and where you are going.
Help your child associate sounds and words with people, activities, and objects.
Make animal and other common environmental sounds for and with him; encourage him to imitate the sound and associate it with a word.
Do not expect your child to repeat a word correctly after just one example. He needs to hear sounds and words correctly many times before you can expect a correct imitation.
Do not allow others to tease him about his speech.
Refrain from interrupting you child during his speech attempts, or telling him to slow down or start over, as that may break up his speech fluency.
When discussing stories, ask for specific information or details; this shows the child you expect good listening during the story. When reading stories, ask the child to predict what happens next.
Have your child practice thinking in categories by dividing pictures and objects into groups. You can begin at a very basic level, by having pictures of “things I like” and "things I don’t like”.
Play games involving “spatial terms” (i.e., under, in front of, etc.).
Children like to play “bigger kid” games; simplify the rules, and let them manipulate the tokens according to your new set of rules.
Use snack and meal times to increase vocabulary by talking about how things taste and using actions words about eating (suck, eat, sip, gobble).

Liz Smith has many parent handouts available specific to a child’s developmental age or certain skills.
Please contact her at (303)530-9191