By Karin Howard, M.A., CCC-SLP

As parents there are lots of little extra efforts we can make to be supportive of our young children's communication growth. There are many skills involved when children are developing their speech and language. Children learn the ability to make the outward effort to express themselves; they form  a way to understand once they have made the effort; and they develop the ability to understand the information taken in from their surroundings. As we are all individuals with unique strengths and challenges, these amazing accomplishments are carried out in different ways and at different times.

By the same token, there are common threads to this process which present opportunities for you to be proactive. The use of sign language with hearing children is one excellent way to help our little ones along with their development. To get you started, here is a list several signs that are appropriate for children 1-3 years of age - eat, drink, play, good, happy, sad, mom and dad. The following procedures will be a good guideline to use when working with your children.

1. First, practice these signs by yourself so that you become consistent with the signs you use with your child. Don't worry if they are not exact according to American Sign Language (ASL), just make sure that you use the same sign for play each time you use it. The most important thing is that you are consistent. Remember, your child will replace these signs with accurate verbal productions when he is ready and his use of the signs will then fade.

2. Begin to introduce these signs to your child. Use the signs when it is appropriate, for example, when your child is looking for food and you know it's time to eat, sign "eat" as you say, "Let's find you something to eat."  Always use verbal productions along with your signed attempts, as this article is addressing hearing children. The verbal and signed communication will allow your child to take in the auditory as well as the visual modality for a multi-sensory and enriched experience.

3. After continued use of signing your child may use some of these signs expressively. Give enthusiastic verbal and signed praise. Their use of expressive signs may be with or without a verbal attempt. Either way is great. Remember also to follow up by supporting your child's communication attempt. For example, if your child signs "play", then play with them, or at least let them know you understand what they were trying to communicate by saying something like "How great you told me you want to play, okay Mommy will play with you soon".

4. As stated earlier, when your child achieves a close enough approximation of the verbal production and they are being understood they will usually drop the signed production and move on with only verbal attempts to communicate, which is appropriate.

By Karin Howard, M.A., CCC-SLP

The communication skills of a newbon are astonishing. In fact, speech and language development visibly occurs immediately after birth. Moments after the birth of my daughter, I looked into her eyes and said "Welcome, Rebekah. We have all been waiting for you." Then, through body language, she communicated back to me. Searching with her little mouth she instantly and non-verbally expressed that she was hungry. As she began to nurse, I knew that we had begun to communicate.

Research in Speech and Hearing Sciences recognizes the communication skills of newborns and even the developing fetus during the last trimester of pregnancy. Nonetheless, parents tend to concentrate on the physical growth of their young child as he or she develops. While physical development is very important, communication skills are equally important. In fact, these two areas of development are interdependent for a healthy child.

The following are ten ways you can nurture the five different areas of speech and language development in typically developing infants and toddlers.

Social Language

1) Eye contact. When communicating with your child, look at his or her face and eyes as often as possible. This helps your child learn that it is appropriate to look at people during communication. Children learn a lot about you through facial expressions and acquire articulation skills by watching the movement of your mouth.

2) Taking turns. Talk to your child and then pause to give them a moment to verbalize. This teaches them the art of turn taking. This skill can also be accomplished during play, using objects and toys.

Expressive Language

3) Give your child space. When your child is trying to communicate with you and you know what they want, give them a few seconds before you instantly meet their needs. This will give them the opportunity to vocalize (coo and babble), point, or attempt a word.

4) Give your child choices and then let them express their choice by pointing, vocalizing, or attempting words. The feelings of confidence a child gains by expressing their own choice are building blocks for further exploration of expressive language.

Receptive Language

5) Get your child to follow instructions. Start with simple requests that only involve one element, such as "smile" or "kiss." Then increase to two elements when one element becomes easy for your child (i.e. "Hand up," or "Touch your nose," and so on).

6) Read simple books to your child with one or two pictures on each page. Ask them questions that can be answered verbally or by pointing to the correct picture. Try not to put too much pressure on them. If your child does not respond after about 10 or 15 seconds, model the answer for them with a positive tone of voice.

Vocabulary Development

7) Reinforce and demonstrate. If your child produces a verbal attempt that resembles a word, praise them with a pleasant tone of voice and then model the word that you think they attempted. For example, if the child says "ba" for ball, say "You said ball. Yes, it is a ball!"

Explore. There are wonderful opportunities to model vocabulary out in the community. A simple trip to the market can be a great chance to name items for your child.

Articulation

9) Observe how often other people understand your child's speech. This will give you an idea of how clear his or her articulation really is (parents usually understand their children more than an outside listener). Don't worry if your toddler is not producing all the sounds in the English language. Many sounds may not develop until four years of age or later. However, you should consider consulting a speech pathologist if it is extremely hard to understand your child's speech at 3 years of age.

10) Articulate your words clearly when you communicate withh your child. Speak slowly and remember to look directly at your child's face.

While speech and language development varies with each child, there is no question that positive daily involvement from a parent and/or a loving caregiver makes the process much smoother. You, the parent, are the "super model" for your child's speech and language development. Taking time to put these tips into action can give you a thoughtful approach as you interact with your amazing little communicator.

Karin Howard is a practicing speech/language pathologist in Los Angeles. She has taught "Mommy and Me" classes that emphasize speech and language to aid parents of typically developing infants and toddlers. She is also the creator of "Exploring Language through Song and Play," a CD set with an accompanying lyric and activity book. You can learn more about this CD set here. There is also a Buy Now button on the upper right side bar of this website if you wish to purchase this CD set.

Being able to understand question forms and being able to ask questions is an essential part of language development. It's the way we give and get information about our world. Questions lay the foundation for children to participate in conversations, demonstrate their knowledge and gather information.

Children with language delays generally have difficulty asking questions as well as answering questions and giving information. Below you will find some tips on how you can help your child learn to both understand and answer questions and also how to ask questions to gain information.

First, however it is important for you as a parent or caregiver to understand basic age guidelines for both asking and answering questions so that you guide your expectations accordingly. Please understand that if your child has a language delay these age guidelines will be lower depending on the severity of the language impairment.

Age Guidelines for Understanding/Answering Questions:

1-2 years understands "What's this?" and simple "Yes/No"
2-3 years understands "What doing?" ("What are you doing?")
understands simple "Who?" ("Who's that?")
understands simple "Where?" ("Where is daddy?")
understands simple "What" (function)? ("What do you do with a toothbrush?")
3-4 years understands simple "How?" ("How did you do that?")
understands simple "Why?" ("Why is he crying?")
understands simple "What…if?", "How many/much?" and "which?"
4-5 years understands "When?"
5-6 years understands most questions, but will still have trouble with complex and abstract questions.

A child's ability to understand and answer questions appropriately develops gradually. By including your child in conversation as much as possible you are providing a good model for your child of rich language including question forms. Is it not necessary for an adult however, to dominate the conversation with questions - both questions and comments are important. Modeling the answer is important as well, especially if you're not sure your child is understanding the question.

Here are some tips for helping your child answer questions:

• Make sure you have your child's attention before asking a question
• Include your child in as many conversations as possible
• Use as many comments as questions during your conversation
• Allow time for your child to think and respond to your question
• Make your child feel successful by asking the types of questions you know he can answer
• Model the answer if you think your child doesn't understand
• Ask simple questions while reading to your child ("What is that?", "Who is crying?", "What is she doing?", "Why did he do that?"…)
• Relate questions from a story back to your child's day ("She went to the store." "Where did you go today?")
• Ask questions by recapping events from your child's day
• Use visual cues if necessary to help your child understand

Age Guidelines for Asking Questions:

2 years        yes/no        "Johnny go?"
2 years        What           "What's that?"
3 years        Where          "Where's daddy?"
3 years        Who            "Who's that?"
4-5 yrs       Why             "Why is she crying?"
4-5 yrs       How            "How does that go in there?"
5-6 yrs       When           "When is daddy coming home?"

Asking questions is a way for us to gain information. Some children have difficulty asking questions. This could be because 1) they don't have the thinking skills to successfully request information, 2) they don't know how to put words together to form questions, or 3) they don't know how to ask questions to get the right information from their listener.

Here are some tips for helping your child ask questions:

• Give your child your full attention when he is trying to ask a question
• Be patient if your child is struggling putting thoughts into word
• If your child's word order is not correct for asking a question, model the correct word order
• As you're doing activities with your child, talk about what you're doing as you do it and "think" out loud asking and answering your own questions ("Where does this piece go?" - "Oh, it goes right here.")
• Engaging with your child in interesting activities will stimulate your child wanting to learn more
• Play games with your child where you ask him a question and then he has to ask you a similar question

Your child’s understanding and formulation of questions lays a foundation for developing skills in all areas of communication and processing information in his environment. Parents and caregivers have endless opportunities to give children practice in questioning and answering techniques. The mastery of answering and asking questions is invaluable to the early learner.