Speech & Language Development
Speech, Language and Communication.
What are they?
Key areas of developing positive speech and language skills for toddlers are…
Listening and attention:
Listening carefully and responding with relevant actions, comments or questions to what they hear.
While being engaged in an activity, learning to give their attention and respond to questions from others appropriately.
Understanding:
Following instructions involving several actions and ideas.
Being able to answer questions in response to ‘how’, ‘why’ or ‘who’ regarding experiences, events or stories.
Speaking:
Learning to show awareness of listeners needs and then expressing themselves effectively.
When talking about events, being able to use past, present and future terms accurately.
Why are they important?
To recognise and respond to many familiar sounds.
Understanding or comprehension of language, is crucial to developing effective spoken language skills.
Understanding comes before talking. Toddlers learn unfamiliar words very rapidly and are often able to use them to communicate.
Although, toddlers can easily become frustrated when they understand, but are unable to express what they want to say.
They use actions, sometimes with limited speech, that are mostly concerned with the ‘here and now’ (the present).
How do you develop these skills and what are they commonly used for?
Toddlers talk in basic sentences and will often use a variety of questions, e.g. what, where, who?
Provide opportunities for toddlers to talk with other children and adults about what they feel, think, say and hear.
Encourage rhymes and repetition, use intonation when singing songs and telling or reciting poems and stories.
Talk about topics that interest your toddler, actively listen and respond to their opinions in easily understood language.
Introduce words and gestures which support two-way communication, to encourage the development of conversation.
If you have any constructive views to add to this topic or have any questions,
always feel free to comment below and I will be more than
happy to try and help you out…
sue@calmkoala.com
But Please Remember: This is a family friendly area and any inappropriate posts will be deleted!