• Be face to face. When talking to your child, try getting on his or her level by kneeling or sitting on the floor and exchanging facial expressions.
• Follow your child’s lead. By engaging in activities that your child is interested in, you will set up opportunities to build your child’s attention span and language skills.
• Speak slowly and clearly. Keep your sentences short and simple. As your child’s language skills grow, you can increase the length.
• Praise your child’s attempts. It is not necessary to correct your child’s grammar or pronunciation at the early stage.
• Listen patiently. Give your child time to respond. It may take a while for him or her to organize thoughts and put them into words.
• Keep language fun. Avoid placing too much pressure on your child to talk. He or she may not want to speak in front of others.

• Parallel talk: Talk about what your child is doing during a play scenario. Say things like: “You’re feeding baby. Stir it up. Take a bite, baby.”
• Self talk: Describe what you are doing or what your child is seeing. Say things like: “Open box. Oh, blocks! Block out. More block. Blocks go up, up, up.”
• Modeling: Repeat your child’s message. This allows you to clarify the message if something wasn’t quite understood. For example, if the child says, “More tootie,” the adult can respond with, “Oh, you want more cookie.”
• Expanding: Build on your child’s previous message. By adding another word, the correct grammar or a new concept, you help expand your child’s basic message. For example, if the child says, “Uh-oh car,” the adult can respond with, “Car fell down. Let’s pick it up.”
• Describing: Add language by using action words, description words and concepts. Focus on what the child sees. For example, if the child brings the parent a jar of bubbles, the adult can say, “You want bubbles. Let’s open. Blow bubbles. Oh, big bubble! Pop, pop, pop!”
• Communicative Temptations: Give your child a reason to communicate. Rather than anticipating the child’s needs ahead of time, provide him or her with an opportunity to communicate via pointing, gesturing or speaking. For example, if the child wants crackers in a closed plastic container, the parent gives the child one cracker, then reseals the container. Then the parent waits for the child to indicate that he or she wants another cracker by signing or saying “more” before getting another cracker.

At every stage of development, parents can use different activities to further their child’s emerging speech and language development.

• Model vowel-like and consonant-vowel sounds during play, such as “ma,” “ba” and “da.”
• Imitate your baby’s laughter and facial expressions.
• Use gestures such as waving goodbye to help convey meaning.
• Introduce animal sounds to associate a sound with a specific object.
• Read to your child. Select books that are sturdy and have large, colorful pictures. Name pictured objects for your child.

• Expand your child’s vocabulary by naming body parts, animals, clothing items, transportation objects and foods.
• Ask questions that require a choice. “Do you want a banana or a cracker?”
• Sing simple songs and/or nursery rhymes that your child can imitate verbally or through gestures.
• Engage in simple pretend play activities that resemble the child’s daily routine (e.g. feeding a baby doll, putting baby to bed, brushing baby’s hair).
• Encourage creativity in your child’s play. Involve the child’s senses when exploring new toys by asking questions about what the child hears, sees, smells, feels or even tastes.

• Talk about spatial concepts using objects (in front, under, in back).
• Work on forming and explaining categories. Identify objects that do not belong in a group of similar items.
• Have your child guess a particular object when given only its description. Example: “What do we use to cut paper?”
• Help your child follow two- or three-step directions. Example: “Get the red ball and place it in the bucket.”
• Participate in pretend play with your child, such as “house.” Exchange roles in the family and discuss the different rooms and furnishings in the house.

• Bath time -- Focus on identifying body parts, using descriptive terms (wet, dirty) and identifying the steps involved in taking a bath (first, next, last).
• Bed time -- Read stories that highlight a variety of new concepts and vocabulary words. Repetition will make learning words and concepts easier for your child.
• Meal time -- Identify foods, concepts (hot, cold, hard, soft), colors and family members.
• Outdoor play time -- Reinforce things your child senses outside (such as see, hear, feel and smell).
• Getting dressed -- Identify clothing items, body parts, colors, steps in the dressing sequence and choice making (“Do you want the red pants or the blue shorts?”).
• Shopping -- Play simple games such as “I spy” to identify objects by description (“I spy something sweet.”)

Parents play a vital role in enhancing their child’s understanding and use of language every day. With a few simple tools and strategies, parents can advance their child’s language learning through everyday experiences.

If you suspect your child may have a language delay, contact your pediatrician for a referral for a comprehensive speech/language assessment by a certified speech-language pathologist.