You and your child's language

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 248, 28 June 1988, Page 10

You and your child's language

A child's first five years are the most important years of his/her life. From birth a child learns new things each day. In the first year most effort is put into doing physical things like sleeping, eating, crawling, walking etc. At this time babies are understanding far more than what they are capable of saying so this is why it is important, right from birth, to talk to your child. Tell him about things you do and things you see, check to see if he

is understanding by asking questions like "Where's Dad?" and watch to see if h e looks in Dad's direction. Check to see whether he understands the names of objects by putting two or three things in front of your child and ask "Where's Teddy?", "Where's the cup?", or "Give me Teddy" etc. A young baby will soon learn what "up" means if everytime Mum picks the child she says "up". Similarly by naming things

your child comes in contact with, you provide the labels he will use later when speech develops. Children begin to speak at different ages, however a lot depends on how much they have been talked to and how much has been done for them. Some children are slow to begin using words because they have no need to - Mum, Dad or brother or sister know what the child wants and give it to him without first making him say it. A child who simply says "ah" when he means "milk" and is given a glass of milk has no need to say "milk" as he has got what he wanted. It is important that some feedback is given to the child so that he is made aware that "ah" is not the word for milk. By providing a

clear model the child will then be able t o copy or attempt a word that sounds closer to what he is meaning. If you accept "ah" and give the child what he wants you are actually letting him know that what he has said is ok and that he doesn't need to try to say it in another way so that no improvement will occur. To be sure of the type of language your child is using it is helpful to occasionally write down exactly what he says - you can then very easily see if he is using incomplete sentences or m i s s i n g words. Once you know what he is not using you can provide him with a good model to copy and so encourage his language to further develop.

Ailson

Anderson

Speech-Language Therapist.