How to Help Your Speech Delayed Child to Talk

Is your child’s speech delayed? Encourage them to react to you through sounds and words. These five practical ways will help your speech-delayed child to talk.

Moms Crushing It with CanCan Quick Steps

Here are five tips on how to encourage language or detect a possible speech delay. Early intervention is key when helping a child overcome a developmental delay.

1. Engaging Your Infant
2. Identify Everything
3. Expand on Playtime
4. Read to Your Child Often
5. Wait for It

My Family Situation

As a mom of eight kids, I’ve experienced developmental milestones in completely different ways. Each child was on their own timetable. My oldest and youngest (both girls) were early bloomers in everything from uttering their first words to toilet training. One son crawled early but walked late. And three of my children did not meet the standard guidelines for speech/language development. In fact, they were significantly delayed resulting in several intensive years of formal speech therapy treatment.

Because my first child was an early talker, I was surprised when my son, a year younger than his sister, was using very little language at the same stages. 

My mother’s intuition told me that something was “off,” despite the advice of many who told me not to worry because boys talk later than girls. While this is true to some extent, I also recognized that he wasn’t making the same effort that my daughter had to express his needs and interests verbally. I followed my gut and had him tested at the age of two.

Early intervention is key when helping a child overcome a developmental delay such as a speech/language problem. By practicing the tips from a speech-language pathologist in your child’s everyday play and routines, you can help elicit language consistently during these formidable years.

Language Skills Prior to Toddlerhood

Your pediatrician is the best source of information about your child.
For more general information, a great resource is the American Speech Hearing Association (ASHA) to learn about developmental milestones as well as descriptions of most types of Communication Disorders.

Here are some language milestones for infants through toddlers. (18 months) shared on one of my favorite language development websites, playingwithwords365.com

• Infants should be babbling regularly between 6-9 months of age.
• Infants should take part in back-and-forth sharing of sounds, smiles, or other facial expressions by nine months.
• Infants should take part in sharing/reciprocal interactions like pointing, sharing, reaching, or waving by 12 months.
• Toddlers should be pointing at objects of interest by 14 months.
• Toddlers typically say their first word somewhere between 9-15 months of age.
• Toddlers between 12-18 months should understand the words for common objects and people in their lives—like baba for bottle, mama, dada, etc.
• Toddlers between 12-18 months should be able to imitate simple gross motor movements like clapping hands or stomping feet. (Imitation is key to language development.)
• By 18 months, the average child has 50 words in his vocabulary and will start to put two words together to form short sentences once he hits this 50-word vocabulary milestone.
• By 18 Months, the average child will be able to answer simple questions (Where is the doggie?), follow simple directions involving common items (get the ball), and point to pictures of common objects in books when asked (ball, book, dog, cat, etc).
• By 18 months, the average child should be able to follow your pointing with his gaze (look at things you point to) and should be playing “pretend” with some objects (pretending to drink from a cup) and should play alongside (not “with”) other children, also known as parallel play [social/pragmatic/play development].

Interacting with Infants and Toddlers

Tip 1: Engaging Your Infant

Those special moments spent cuddling and gazing at your newborn are not only tender moments but also wonderful opportunities to engage your baby in language activities. When your baby stares at you, imitate his facial expressions. If he sticks his tongue out at you, do the same back to him. Do this several times and see if he imitates you. 

Any time you can offer an explanation of what you’re doing while caring for him or what might be happening around him is a wonderful opportunity to engage your baby in receptive (what a child understands) language.

Tip 2: Identify Everything

Young children learn language by listening to those around them.

The opportunities to describe the world around your baby and toddler are endless. Get into the habit of offering an explanation for everything you do, such as counting the kisses you give her, using names of siblings as they enter the room, pointing out colors such as the pretty blue sky in the painting, the sofa is brown, and the kitty is gray, mommy’s shirt is pink. 

Build on the skill of imitating by teaching your baby to play peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake, waving bye-bye, and shaking your head “yes” or “no.” Remember to communicate about all the things you see in her environment. When she points at things, talk about them.

See Also: 6 Easy Ways to Help a Child With Learning Differences

Tip 3: Expand on Playtime

One of the best tips I learned from the first Speech Language Pathologist that worked with my son was to use playtime to expand on language opportunities.

My son loved playing with cars and trucks. In fact, he said the word car before he said, Mama! Her advice was to get down on the floor and label everything that was happening during his playtime with the cars. “You have three blue cars.” “Your truck is red.” “Your car is going to the store.” “We can buy milk at the store,” and so on.

We did this over and over and over again for weeks on end, and then he suddenly started repeating the words and eventually using them on his own when he played.

This routine was successful because he was interested in playing with his toys. We took full advantage of building on his language by following his lead and engaging in labeling, describing, being enthusiastic, and basically being consistent by talking to him about whatever he was doing so that he was being bombarded with language.

While we’re on the topic of toys, make sure you have basic toys that allow for many open-ended play opportunities, such as colorful wooden blocks, simple baby dolls, pretend kitchen and food setups, puzzles, and other toys that allow kids to use their imaginations and engage in pretend play.

Tip 4: Read to Your Child Often

Reading to your child as often as possible is another great way to elicit language from him.

Also, simply describe the pictures in a book without following the written words.

Choose books that have large colorful pictures that are not too detailed. Ask your child, “What’s this?” and encourage naming and pointing to familiar objects in the book. You can also introduce animal sounds to associate a sound with a specific meaning: “The cow says moo.”

Tip 5: Wait for It

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s difficult for kids and parents alike to wait for anything. We have knowledge and answers literally at our fingertips; however, for a child who is struggling to learn language, we need to be patient and give her a chance to come up with the response herself.

Set up “communication temptations” for your child who does not typically use words to make requests. Put a desired object in a container that cannot be opened by the child. Hand the container to the child, and when he/she cries, encourage him/her to use the word “open” to retrieve the object.

As frustrating as it is to do this (I can’t tell you how many crying meltdowns we went through with our speech-delayed kids, it’s exhausting but well worth it when they start to use words), waiting it out will force language opportunities for your child. And when she does utter the right word or make an attempt to be verbal, don’t forget to praise the heck out of her! When you have a speech-delayed child, you also take on the role of a cheerleader—equally as important in encouraging talking

Follow Your Intuition

If you feel your child might have a significant delay like mine did, don’t delay in seeking an evaluation. Consult with your pediatrician for a recommendation.  What do you do in your home to help foster language in your late talker?  Share your thoughts and ideas in the comment selection below or email me at thecancanmom@gmail.com. You can also visit me on Instagram at CanCanMomCB or on Pinterest at theCanCanMom.