Talk, Play, & Grow: Early Intervention Tips to Boost Language Skills
Communication is used throughout each day to communicate and convey thoughts, ideas, and requests by everyone. A child’s exposure to language plays a critical role in language development and how they will interact with their environment. We’ll explore tips and strategies on how to encourage communication and language development with your child in a fun and playful way!Follow Your Child’s Lead & Remain Engaged
Engaged parenting has been proven to increase confidence and skill development. Parenting that does not emphasize child-led direction can lead to difficulty with regulation and emotions, wait times, executive functioning (i.e., planning), impulse control, and working memory (Crawford, 2021). Promoting children to take lead increases confidence, independence, and sense of belonging. This can be as simple as following their lead in play or in decision making!Pause & Wait
Pausing and waiting after you ask your child a question or making a comment allows them to think about how to respond. Embracing the silence may give your child a better chance to communicate. Pausing and waiting allows for children to process what they have heard to provide appropriate and relevant responses, while increasing communicative opportunities. For example, when saying, “ready, set, go,” you can say, “ready, set,” and wait to see if you’re child will complete with “go!”.Talk While You Play: Self-talk & Parallel-Talk
The language that children are exposed to makes a difference in their learning process. Self-talk is when you narrate the actions that you are doing (i.e., “I’m putting the ball in the bucket”), and parallel-talk is when you narrate the actions a child is doing (i.e., as they are pushing a toy car, you may say, “You are pushing the car, wow!”). These types of talks expose children to language in real-time, allowing them to make connections on how to use language to communicate. Combine Words with Gestures
Communication comes in many forms, not just verbal expression. Body language, facial expressions, and signing are forms of communication that convey messages and requests. Children, especially those with speech and language delays, benefit from gestures as it provides a method to express and be understood by listeners or communication partners. Gestures that children use provide insight on their current knowledge and understanding of language (Goldin-Meadow, 2021). For example, when opening a bucket of toys, you could verbally express and sign open at the same time, providing a visual to support language. Be Silly!
Being silly encourages communication by increasing attention and participation during play or conversation. The more fun a child has while learning how to communicate and navigate language, the more willing they will be in turn-taking and responding! Making “mistakes” like switching a word to a familiar song, using/giving a wrong object in play or when requested, alternating tones, and “forgetting” are all ways to keep your child engaged and receptive to language. Make More Comments
Comments model language in a way where children can begin to expand. These models are provided in natural settings, and can allow a child to learn how to use language without the negative pressure of making a mistake. Comments shift away from what knowledge the child currently has and provides them with language that may be new or unfamiliar to them. When interacting with your child, be more descriptive by being specific to their actions and interactions, elaborating on what they are doing/saying, and acknowledging their attempts. Reduce Questions
Although questions can provide input on how a child is feeling or information on their experiences, too many questions and the types of questions we ask can prevent children from receiving a proper model of communication. The goal is to provide them the language so they can determine how to use it independently in various contexts! To increase fluidity in play and conversation, you could provide choices or make comments. Shifting from yes/no questions to wh-questions can encourage deeper critical thinking. Expand their Language
In addition to recasting, children also benefit from the language they use in conversation being expanded on. Whether through additional verbal language, or gestures, expansion allows for children to see language elaborated on. Benefits of expanding language include increased vocabulary exposure, supporting sentence development, and comprehension. This could look like a child saying “ball!”, and you responding with, “You see the big green ball!”. Recasting
Recasting language means to repeat what a child says with a corrected or more appropriate model of what was said. Modeling correct language based on what a child has said builds on previous communicative acts. More importantly, recasting encourages language and communication specific in context and meaning. For instance, when a child says “me want snack”, recasting may look like, “You want some snack!”. Manipulate the Environment
Minimizing the access your children have to toys and preferred activities increases functional communication opportunities as children will need to request for assistance or for more! One way to do this is by placing toys in line of sight but out of reach, where children will have to ask for help in accessing them. Another example could be to give your child a desired item piece by piece, where you can wait for them to ask for more (Landa et al., 2022). Check out these Activities to Encourage Speech and Language Activities to Encourage Speech and Language Development
References
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Activities to encourage speech and language development. ASHA. Retrieved May 18, 2025, from https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/activities-to-encourage-speech-and-language-development/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Early intervention. ASHA. Retrieved May 18, 2025, from https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/professional-issues/early-intervention/#collapse_1
Crawford, K. (2021, March 11). Stanford-led study highlights the importance of letting kids take the lead. Stanford Graduate School of Education. https://ed.stanford.edu/news/stanford-led-study-highlights-importance-letting-kids-take-lead.
Goldin-Meadow, Susan (2021, August 1). How gesture promotes learning throughout childhood. National Library of Medicine. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2835356/
Landa, R. J., Ochoa-Lubinoff, C., Rosales, N. L., Solís, M., & Kaiser, A. P. (2022). Adaptation of a caregiver-implemented naturalistic communication intervention for Spanish-speaking families of Mexican immigrant descent: A promising start. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 65(3), 851–866.
