14 days into 2014 - Toddler Speech Development (Tuesday Tot Talk)

Happy Tuesday, everyone! The proclaimed “worst day of the week”! I actually usually find Mondays a bit more challenging, but today it was tough getting out the door. Molly is daytime potty-trained and has been for a few months now, but we still put a diaper on at night…except for last night when we forgot to. That resulted in some quick laundry this morning before work! Oops!!! Mommy fail last night!

I started a series talking about kid stuff on Tuesdays, and I’m hoping to resume that now in the new year. I call it “Tuesday Tot Talks” and I’ll try to keep most kiddie talk to Tuesdays on my blog. Today, I want to talk about helping your child learn to talk.

Molly was a late talker, so much so that we requested a speech and hearing assessment at 18 months when she was only speaking a few syllables. We were on a waiting list for months, during which time she improved dramatically, and we finally met with the speech pathologist right before Christmas.  The assessment went well, and she scored well with some suggestions for improving a few syllables. I have been working with her on the suggestions and she has been talking up a storm for the past month or so.

Here are some tips I’ve learned that you can implement to help your toddler learn to speak:

1. Engage them in conversation. Ask questions and wait for them to answer, even if they don’t answer correctly.
2. Make easy corrections in conversation. For instance, Molly always says “go” instead of “no”, but we know she is saying no because of her tone (she also says “go” for “go”). Simply correcting her by saying, “do you mean, ‘no’?” can help her to realize that she is saying the word a bit incorrectly. 
3. Ask your child to repeat after you. We do this all the time with Molly, especially if she is saying a word incorrectly or you are trying to introduce a new word or phrase. She is usually more than happy to oblige. For instance, we are trying to teach her “please” and “thank you” so we encourage her to say these when someone helps her with something or gives her something.
4. Do not respond with the incorrect word. By this, I mean, if she says “downgoes” instead of “downstairs” (which she does), YOU, as the adult, should still always be saying downstairs. My husband sometimes mimics what she is saying so that he can communicate with her, but this just reinforces the incorrect speech pattern.
5. Be patient if the child is trying to say something, but you can’t decipher it. A few times, Molly has been adamantly saying words to us that we simply cannot understand, and it really frustrates her. A week ago, she was trying to say that she wanted to have a dance party downstairs before supper (which we often do after work). She was saying “da goey” which was confusing to Brian and me, and she just kept saying it and pointing until one of us clued in, but she was getting a bit upset. It happens frequently, but it will get better, and she is trying really hard to communicate, which is a positive thing.
6. Facial expressions and tone can help you to understand what your child is saying, too. See below...Molly is saying "I don't want to be Molly Potter, Mommy!" haha.

One thing we are really working on with Molly these days is helping her to fix some of the words that she has gotten into the habit of saying incorrectly (i.e. go instead of no)...we know she can say the "n" syllable, but she is in the habit of saying it the wrong way. Eventually, I am confident that she will be fine, though.

Last night, she came down from her bath looking for her "buggles" (puzzles). Brian thought she was looking for a bagel...which she has never eaten...it was pretty funny actually.

Here are some other links on this topic:
Toddler talk
10 ways to get toddlers to talk
Tips to get toddlers talking

Hope everyone has a great day! Tomorrow I have a book review of the Divergent series on the blog :)