How to Encourage Baby's Speech

Most parents can't wait for their little bundles of joy to begin speaking. Try these simple steps to encourage your baby's speech or enhance your toddler's language skills.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Bombard them with language. Whether your child is a young baby or a talkative toddler, enhance their speech by talking to them about what you are doing and where you are going. Babies will begin to understand words and will start their important journey toward speech. Toddlers will have the ability to understand more complex sentence structure and will model their speech after yours.

2. Read books and discuss the pictures. For babies, point to the pictures and talk about the items you see. Make your sentences descriptive and complete. Instead of "There is the ball," try "Look at the red ball. We can bounce a ball or roll a ball when we play." For toddlers, point to the pictures and ask them for descriptive phrases.

3. Give a name to everything you and your baby see. Point out colors and shapes, adding as many descriptive phrases as you can. Don't forget to model the sounds an object makes for even more fun.

4. Expand on their words. When your baby triumphantly shouts out "baba" for bottle, be sure to acknowledge his or her words and expand on them. "Yes that is your bottle and it is full of cold milk."

5. Sings songs with repetitive words or sounds. A baby or toddler who hears certain sounds over and over is likely to try to make those sounds.

Tips & Warnings

• If you sign to your baby, be sure to always vocalize the words at the same time.
• Never withhold items from your baby or toddler as punishment for not speaking. Speech comes slowly and is a foundation that must be built upon. Children learn best with praise and laughter, not punishment.