How can I help my child's early communication skills?

It is hard to underestimate the importance of early language skills; a child’s early development of language will lay the foundations for future learning and communication, and ultimately success in life.  During the first years of life a child’s brain is developing rapidly and the interactions that parents have with children will impact how they develop and learn.

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Children who develop strong language skills will arrive at school ready to learn and are more likely to show higher achievements. So what can we do to encourage early language skills? Here are 5 ways to promote early language skills:

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1. Elicit rather than demand speech: It is so easy to demand speech, ‘Say thank you’, ‘Say please can I have a biscuit!’ Demanding speech may work in the short term but will often result in the child withdrawing and reducing spontaneous talking.  Try to elicit speech instead, ‘It’s a …….’,  ‘A duck says……’ with enthusiasm.  Model rather than demand speech, for example, ‘It’s time to say goodbye to Auntie… Goodbye!’  Gestures such as waving goodbye or hello will be helpful as they take the pressure off ‘talking’ and this usually encourages the child to have a go at saying the word. Singing songs and then pausing before a key word and looking expectantly at the child is another form of elicitation, for example ‘Head, shoulders, knees and ……’.  
2. Use location and frequency:  A child learns language through hearing the same word in the same location many times. When we change the words we use this makes it more difficult and children will take longer. When children are very young, use the same words in short phrases in the child’s routine, for example, ‘brush teeth’ before bedtime, ‘go in car’ before going out. Parents can use an object to support a child’s understanding and trigger talking, such as giving the toothbrush to the child and saying ‘brush teeth’ before that activity.
3. Read interactively: Reading interactively is a great way to develop your child’s language and particularly their early reasoning. Choose simple picture books to look through together. Research has shown that children can be encouraged to name or point to concrete items at 2 years e.g. ‘Show me a dog’; at 3 years children can be encouraged to look at objects in more detail, e.g. ‘Show me something big’, and then at 4 years they can answer why/because questions and predict what might happen next. Talking about pictures with our children will play an important role in their language development.
4. Be a Commentator: Tune in to your child’s interests by observing what they gravitate towards and comment on their play. Commenting on what your child is looking at or doing is a great way to give children examples of how to use language and modelling phrases for them to use. Research shows that the more parents model language for children, the more children will talk. For example as your child is playing with or looking at cars, make comments such as ‘The blue car goes under the tunnel’, ‘The blue car goes very fast’ etc.
5. Encourage early problem solving: As children develop in their language they will learn they can communicate for different purposes. An important emerging purpose at around 4 years of age is for the child to suggest solutions to problems e.g. ‘We need glue to stick this!’ Before children will talk about solutions they need to experience and learn that they can problem solve. This can start early, for example, when they are riding a bike and cannot get past an obstacle. A parent’s natural reaction would be to move the obstacle for them whether they show frustration or not. Instead try waiting and see if they will try to solve the problem themselves. If not model it for them, e.g. ‘Let’s try to move this chair so you can get through. Can you help me?’

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Children develop their early language skills through the positive interaction with adults around them in play. Supporting our children to explore and engage in early problem solving will set our children up to be strong learners in school.

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‘Home is the most important school young children will ever know and children’s parents are the most important teachers they will ever have.'  - Edwin Gordon 2013

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