SPT: Early Speech Development

It is no surprise that one of the most monumental milestones in a child’s life is their first word. It opens the door to the child’s independence in interacting within their environment. Children may use words to request for their wants and needs, answer questions, greet others, comment on their favorite things, and sing along to catchy songs!

Expressive language is the ability to communicate their thoughts, wants, and needs through words, gestures, and/or facial expressions. Expressive language encompasses both verbal and non-verbal communication including facial expressions, pointing, ASL signs, picture exchange, or an AAC device. Expressive communication allows for socialization with others!

Prior to your child saying their first word, there are a number of milestones within play which assist the child’s ability to communicate verbally. In speech therapy, we focus on these pre-language skills in order to increase their attention, motivation, and understanding of the world around them.

1. Imitation of functional play: Learning to copy an adult’s play with toys allows the child to observe the caregiver’s actions and eventually imitate the same actions! It is important to make play fun and engaging to encourage the child to attend and want to participate with you.

   1. Strategies to try at home: Sit on the floor and join your child in play! Start by modeling how the toys are supposed to be played with before advancing to more creative play schemes. Describe what you are doing and make it look exciting! Great toys to start with include toy rings, blocks, cars, ball ramps, musical instruments, and pop-up toys.

2. Participation in pretend play: Once your child is able to play with a toy in its intended way, make it more creative and engaging! Think outside of the box such as using a block as a phone!

   1. Strategies to try at home: Use familiar routines when initiating pretend play such as cooking, cleaning, hygiene routines, etc. Examples of actions include mixing a spoon and bowl, holding an object as a phone, brushing a doll’s teeth, or knocking on a door. Great toys include kitchen items, dolls, animals, car ramps/garages, and magnetic tiles.

3. Use of gestures: Gestures can be used to communicate such as shaking head yes/no, pointing, and baby signs, but they can also be used to participate in play or songs!

   1. Strategies to try at home: Sing familiar songs that involve gestures such as Wheels on the Bus, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Baby Shark, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. Incorporate gestures during everyday activities such as high fiving, waving, blowing kisses, and clapping. Toys are not necessary to work on this step!

4. Vocalizing within play: The goal in this step is to have your child imitate vocal noises that are not necessarily words. When playing with your child in play, use funny and engaging noises to encourage the child to repeat.

   1. Strategies to try at home: Start with feelings/reactions such as fake crying, a happy squeal, angry grunt, scared “ah!”, or shocked “oh”. Other examples include slurping a pretend drink, “sh” sound for saying good night, car/siren noises, fake cough, fake sneeze, and yawn.

5. Exclamatory words! Exclamatory words are exciting noises and words that are usually produced with inflection. These sounds can be incorporated into everyday activities!

   1. Strategies to try at home: Exclamatory words can be categorized into celebratory sounds, silly sounds, or mistake sounds. Celebratory sounds may include yay, woo hoo, and hooray. Silly sounds may include wee, eek, ew, ick, blah, mmm, and yum! Mistake sounds occur when something “bad” happens such as uh oh, oh no, whoa, boo hoo, oops, boo boo, and ouch.

At Seedlings Pediatric Therapy, we understand the worry and anxiety you may feel if your child is not yet talking. Many caregivers may not realize all the developmental milestones your child is working on in order to increase their ability, motivation, and desire to communicate verbally. If you are concerned about your child’s expressive language skills, please contact Seedlings Pediatric Therapy for a consultation today!

References:

Mize, Laura. “11 Skils Toddlers Master Before Words Emerge.” Teach Me to Talk , Laura Mize, M.S., CCC-SLP, teachmetotalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CHART-of-11-Skills-Toddlers-Master-Before-Words-Emerge-from-Laura-Mize-and-teachmetotalk.com_.pdf.