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Language Development in Toddlers

© Charlene Cunningham

As our children go from baby to toddler, we parents find ourselves intently listening for that first word to pop out of our baby's cute little mouth. Many babies actually begin to speak their first words at about 10 months starting with easy words like mommy, daddy, and dog. These words (and sometimes it's even short phrases) tend to disappear when the child begins to walk. This is due to the fact that toddlers can only really concentrate on mastering one task at a time. New words begin to reappear towards the end of the second year, at about 18-24 months. At this age toddlers can learn a remarkable 10-20 new words every day. Once toddlers hit age 2-watch out!! Here come the words! Although boys and girls meet the language milestones at approximately the same time, scientists have found that girls tend to start talking on average about 1 to 2 months earlier than boys. By the age of three the average child will have a vocabulary of about 50,000 words. To see where your child's normal language development should be, check out the language development chart at http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/developm... This chart covers age-appropriate milestones that your child should be meeting and gives links to sites that cover warning signs of speech and/or hearing disorders.

There are 5 things that parents can do with their children to significantly improve language development.

1.ECHOING: When your child says a word, correctly repeat the word back to him or her.

2.RECASTING: Restate what your child says in a different way. For instance, if your child uses the word "cookie" and points to the cookie jar, add the word into a complete sentence like, "You would like to eat a cookie."

3.EXPANDING: Use other descriptive words to add to the words your child uses. If your child says, "My doll," then you should say, "Your doll has pretty brown eyes and long dark hair."

4.LABELING: This technique is used from very early on with most children. When your child is exposed to new things say their names out loud several times. Also use this for familiar objects like "juice" or "diaper."

5.READING: It has been proven time and again that children who are read to have an easier time speaking, reading and writing when they hit school age. Try letting your child "read" to you. Give them the book, let them turn the pages and tell you what it says! This is a good imagination builder also. Reading improves vocabulary, which will help your child in scoring well on standardizing testing throughout grade school and college.

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