Tuesday 18 January 2011

Activities to Encourage Speech and Language Development For Younger Children

I wrote some time ago about my DIY plans regarding LM’s speech and language, and described the activities we currently do to improve her listening. I thought I would also step back and review the activities we had done in the past hoping these may be of help to some visitors of my blog.
When LM was initially referred to have her speech and language assessed by a therapist a couple of years ago, she could only say a handful of short words. I was given a list of recommendations targeting her vocabulary, understanding and use of language. Some of the suggestions were quite common sense while some were something I hadn't really thought of before. I suppose that these activities would be relevant for preverbal children or those at a single-word level in terms of their language. In fact, some of these activities can be started from birth as a preventative measure to help the child hit the language milestones on time.
5-Minute Play
One of the most important activities I was recommended by the speech and language therapist was to introduce short 5-minute play sessions throughout the day – as often as I could. The following are the list of rules I was to stick to.
1.    Remove all pressure to talk – DON’T ask your child to repeat what you say and DON’T ask questions (you know the answers to!).
2.    Sit at the same level as the child so that they can see your face – lying on the sofa while your baby is playing on the carpet won’t do; reduce any background noise.
3.    Follow your child’s lead and copy their play in silence – if your child starts banging toys, do exactly the same. This is intended to attract your child’s attention.
4.    Wait for your child to make an eye contact with you:
a.    If they look at you but don’t say anything, smile and say a word for what they have in their hand or say a word for the action they are carrying out;
b.    If they make a noise, but not a specific word, try to guess what they are saying, praise them with a nod, a smile, and model the word you think they are trying to say;
c.    If they say a word and it’s close but not quite right, do not correct (saying, "oh no, it is wrong!"), but again praise them and model  the word you think they are trying to say clearly, e.g. if they say “gog”, you reply “mmm, dog!”
d.    If they say a word and it is clear, repeat the word and add on another, for example, “baby” – “mmm, baby’s sleeping!”
Running Commentary
Outside the five-minute play sessions, during bath times, feeding times and when outside, provide simple 1-2 word commentary. For example, you could get down to your child’s level during their bath time and use words like “splash, splash”, “soap”, “duck”, “quack, quack”, etc.
Copying All Vocalisations, Words and Sounds
Never leave your child’s vocalisations unnoticed. This will give your child good feedback and will encourage them to copy your sounds and words. Add simple sounds to everything, such as “brum-brum”, when playing with a car, etc.
Pretend Play
I was also advised to encourage LM’s pretend play skills by modelling simple play sequences. Show your child how you bath, brush, feed and dress a doll or a teddy. You can do it during play times as well as bath times and mealtimes.
Body Part Awareness
You can work on body part awareness during mealtimes, bath times and play times. For example, during bath times get to your child’s level so they can see your face and introduce each body part by emphasising the word while doing the action, e.g. “Let’ put soap on your head.”
Offering Choices
When offering something, don’t just give a single object, but provide a choice and encourage your child to make their choice by looking, pointing, reaching, gesturing or vocalising. When the child makes a choice, give it to them while saying the name of it. For instance, during a snack time you may want to offer them an apple or banana; if they choose the banana, you give it to them saying “banana”.
Singing and Sign Language
Encourage your child to add sounds, words, and actions to nursery songs, such as “The “Wheels on the Bus”, “Old McDonald”, etc. Introduce the animal sounds with simple signs. Put toy animals in a bag and bring them out one by one making the sound and the sign for each. Encourage your child to add sounds, words and actions. (Sign language is a brilliant tool to enhance language, but this could be a whole new topic, so I will not dwell on it here.)
Looking through Books
Introduce name of animals, food, etc. in simple stories, such as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, “Dear Zoo”. You can combine this activity with the previous one. For example, you can get a bag with the animals featured in “Dear Zoo” and use them as props while you read the book and let you child hold the toys.
Encouraging Eye Contact
This used to be LM’s weakest area and I was advised to encourage her to look at my face with simple things like playing “peek-a-boo” and making faces and sounds while sitting at her level. One of the great activities which helped was blowing bubbles and saying “ready, steady, go!” while holding the bubble stick near my face. I gradually increased the time she had to wait looking at me before I blew the bubbles.
I will update this post if I remember more activities.
LM’s Mum

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