Speech: helping your child to understand

Understanding speech comes before usage and your toddler will understand a lot more of what she hears than her own speech suggests.

• Talk to your child as often as you can and always look at her when you do so. In this way your child will be given the maximum number of opportunities for learning and understanding language.

• Help your baby's comprehension by acting out what you are saying with facial expressions and gestures, and make your words accompany some actions that can involve her: “Mummy will take off Mummy's shoes”, or “Mummy will put on Jennifer's coat”.

• For your child to learn that communication is always two-way, you shouldn't babble on with long sentences and stories without giving her the opportunity to participate and contribute. Punctuate your conversations with questions that demand a response of some kind.

• Your child finds it very difficult to understand language if there is a great deal of background noise that obscures speech sound. So if the television is on keep the sound low and don't play your radio loudly.

• Give her the confidence to try some conversation with strangers by acting as her interpreter. In this way she won't feel embarrassed and will have a go.

• Give her as many cues and clues to your meaning as you can, even though you know that she cannot understand exactly what you are saying. For example, at bathtime take her into the bathroom, run the tap, feel the temperature of the water and undress her, giving her information about what you are doing all the time and then say, “Now you are ready for your bath”. Having had all the visual action and speech clues presented to her, she will certainly understand the meaning of your last comment.

Help your child read and understand books

As with other aspects of her development, you are your child's first introduction to books. If she regularly sees you sitting reading a book or magazine, she soon will start copying your behaviour. You will find her sitting, studiously “reading” her book - which may well be upside down - and turning over the pages at intervals!

Gradually her attention will turn to the content of the pages as she starts to recognize objects. Popular books with this age group are those with clear, recognizable pictures of familiar, everyday objects that you can look at with your child, pointing and referring to the object by name. As your child's vocabulary expands during this year, she will be able to point to objects herself when asked. She will soon start to appreciate simple, illustrated stories, especially those with a repeated “chorus”, which she will start to anticipate and join in with such as The Gingerbread Man or The Three Billy-Goats Gruff. As well as having a regular refrain, the most popular stories for this age group have simple, recurring themes - often involving the downfall of the big, fierce “baddie” (the wolf, the troll, the wicked witch) or the victory of the small or weak hero over her bigger and stronger opponent (the little pig in Three Little Pigs). Toddlers often want the same story read over and over again; for some reason, they find something in the story that they need. If that is what your child wants, let her have it - even if you are bored with it.

The value of nursery rhymes in your child's speech

Children love nursery rhymes - from the first game of “This little piggy” to all the old favourites - and will join in enthusiastically with whatever actions are involved. As with storybooks, the attraction of nursery rhymes lies in their simplicity, drama and recurring motifs and, above all, in the rhythm that babies and toddlers respond to from a very early age. Don't worry if you think you don't have a great singing voice: your child won't mind. In fact, you'll never have had such an appreciative and adoring audience! Nursery rhymes play an important part in the development of your child's language skills, as well as providing an enjoyable and entertaining form of communication. Many can be sung as the accompaniment to activities - e.g. “See-saw Marjorie Daw” or “Incy Wincy Spider” - thus teaching and reinforcing the concepts in an enjoyable and memorable form. All will expand your child's vocabulary, extend her powers of imagination, and encourage a love of music and rhythm.

Dr Miriam Stoppard

New Babycare
Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley
Text copyright © 2009 Miriam Stoppard

Posted 30.06.2010

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