Supporting "Late Talkers"

Caregiver Strategies to Help Support “Late Talkers”

This blog post will share strategies to try with early language learners and provide explanations and examples of each strategy. 

Self Talk and Parallel Talk 

Self Talk is when you talk out loud about what you’re doing. This can look like talking to your child about what you put in the shopping cart, describing what you see on a walk, or talking through the steps of what you’re making for lunch. 

Parallel Talk is a similar concept, but it is talking out loud about what your child is doing. When I use this strategy in my sessions, I am simply narrating what I see the child doing and I am providing those language models for them. For example, “open”, “open door”, “go down car”, “I am jumping”, “red block in”, etc. 

Language Routines

The general idea around language routines is adding a verbal routine to a physical routine that you are already doing at home on a consistent basis. Three things that happen every day that I like to start with include getting dressed, getting undressed, and brushing your teeth. A language routine around getting dressed would look like the following as you complete each part of the physical routine: “foot in, foot in, pull up” “arm in, arm in, shirt on”. For brushing your teeth it might sound like: “toothbrush out, toothpaste on, toothbrush in, brush teeth, spit out, all done”. The idea is that you are taking the action and breaking it down to its most basic concept and providing consistent language models for something that is happening every day and is already a consistent physical routine. After consistently using these language routines, your child will hopefully start to recognize the words that accompany the actions and if you say “foot in, foot in, pull _____” after consistently having added a final word there, your child might recognize that you left something out and might make an attempt to help fill that word in. 

Sign Language and Visuals 

Sign language is a great strategy to use as you model early language. Throughout my sessions I provide basic signs such as “open”, “help”, “more”, “in”, “out”, and different colors as I verbally model these words and actions. This is a helpful strategy that continues to support verbal language while also providing access to a different modality of communication.

The Visuals strategy refers to showing pictures of objects or actions when talking. This can look like showing pictures of various animals, colors, objects, etc. as you name them and talk about them with your child. Similar to utilizing sign language, this strategy continues to create a language rich environment that your child can access in a new way.

Sabotage and Be Forgetful

With the Sabotage strategy, we are creating scenarios where your child needs your support to accomplish their task. Some ways that I use this strategy include keeping a desired toy in a bag that they cannot open by themselves, keeping a toy on a higher shelf that they cannot reach, or blocking the top of the car ramp with my hand. The Sabotage strategy encourages communication by creating scenarios where children must express their wants and needs.

The Be Forgetful strategy is similar in nature to the Sabotage strategy. We are looking to create an event that is incomplete. Depending on the age of your child and other areas of knowledge and skill sets, this could look like forgetting to give your child a spoon with their cereal or only helping put on one shoe. 

When using these strategies, it is important to remember to honor any and all attempts to communicate in these situations. These two strategies are centered around helping the connection click between making a communication attempt and then getting what you want/need. 

Summary: 

It is important to honor all communication attempts made, even if you do not understand what your child is saying. Talking back to your child after they have talked to you is crucial in their expressive language development and shows that you have heard their attempt and are now conversing back with them. Even if you don’t know what they’re saying, you can make an educated guess and model the appropriate language. Follow their lead and talk about what they’re interested in. Children are more willing to make communication attempts when they are interested and curious about what they’re playing with. Language can be built and modeled around anything! Don’t be afraid to support their language development around something that might not initially seem like it has a lot of language. Language rich environments create welcoming spaces for young communicators to trial and error new forms of communication. Try out some of these strategies at home and talk with your treating clinician about how they’re going and ways that they can be modified to fit into your daily lives.

Written by Amelia Aaron, MS, CCC-SLP