Increase your baby's Pre-Linguistic Skills
Pre-Language skills are those building blocks of communication. Often when I see a little one with a speech delay I hear their parents say, “They’re just not talking yet!”. We speech-pathologists understand this can be frustrating, but we also know that the number of words a child is saying is not the only, or even most enlightening marker of communication development in the birth to three age range.
Pre-Linguistic or Pre-Language skills are the building blocks of spoken communication. These include all the ways we communicate without words. Everything from eye contact, to gestures, or even facial expressions and crying. These skills set children up to be ready to learn to speak.
We’re going to explore some actionable tips and tricks that you can do today to help give your little one a push towards mastering the pre-linguistic skills so they can get onto talking.
PLAY!
Play is packed with language, gestures, and back and forth turn taking (just like communication). Peek-a-boo, Bubbles, Rolling a ball back and forth, playing Hide and Seek. These all require verbal and non-verbal communication from one or both players. Just like Hide and Seek and peek-a-boo requires turn taking, so does communication!
MODEL
Children learn to speak by imitating adults. When they are first learning to speak their imitation attempts don’t quite hit the mark. Your child may understand full sentences, but they’re not yet speaking themselves. This is important to note, adults can get stuck in the habit of speaking in full sentences to their children and never minimizing their speech to match where their child’s imitation level is at. So if your little one is not yet speaking, it’s important when playing 1:1 to speak in slow, exaggerated, clear, single words. You can talk about what your child is looking at or playing with. Anything they’re interested in!
FACE TO FACE
When it comes to modeling single words, it’s very helpful to be at eye level with your little one. Even when seated on the floor playing, you are likely still a head or two taller than your toddler. While it’s unlikely they will continuously crane their necks to watch your mouth as you speak, it’s likely that if you lean forward onto your elbows, lay on your side with your head propped up on your hand, or have your child seated at a table, you can achieve this face to face posture we’re seeking. Children don’t only learn to speak from hearing us speak, but also from watching. This is why being face to face is so important. Having a hard time getting your child to make eye contact or watch your face? Put the object of interest next to your mouth while you name it before handing it over!
KEEP ATTENTION
As a child develops their ability to differentiate their attention and focus on one sound while ignoring others (e.g. focus on a parent in spite of the TV on in the background) is not yet as developed as yours or mine. Helping them out by turning off or reducing the volume on the TV and putting away distracting objects, toys, and focusing in on whatever your child is interested in.
BE EXPRESSIVE
It’s out there in the great wide internet and in our culture as well that adults should talk to children as though they are also adults. That it will help their development. But if you think back on the last few tips and tricks for building pre-linguistic skills, it may not come as a surprise that exaggerated, stressed, and elongated modeling of words is going to be the best model for your child. Exaggerating words with facial expressions, intonation of your voice, and even pairing with gestures will help your child understand what you’re communicating and give them an opportunity to repeat it back to you!
