My child is not speaking yet. She is 18 months old. What can I do?
Here are 5 tips which you can do at home to improve your child’s language skills:
- Help your child understand more by building on his receptive language. Model for the child what a word or a phrase means, like during “Clean up time!” then show the child how to put the toys in the box.
- Encourage your child to imitate sounds during free play. Have child look at your face as you make the different animal sounds or vehicle sounds and encourage him to imitate. Word sounds , onomatopoeia, are fun ways to help children practice expressive language.
- Allow child to display recognition of word before identification of word. Show child some colours and ask the child to point out “red”. If the answer is correct, say “red” to model for the child.
- Play games to practice turn taking and joint attention (“Watch me! It’s time to play! Let’s throw!” Then toss the item in the box excitedly, “Yay!” or “I did it!” .Next offer your child a turn. Say something like, “Here you go! Ball! Throw the ball in!”)
- Do lots of verbal routines. Allow child to hear phrases during games, stories and role-playing create opportunities for child to join in and practice using wide variety of verbal routines, “It’s lunch time!” “Pizza! Pizza! Yummy, yummy Pizza!
Speak to us and get to know our language rich activities at Camelot Infant and Preschool centre. Call / WhatsApp 9811 8333