Tips to help your child with language
Parents play an important role in their child’s speech and language development.
These are ways to help your child:
CONTACT
Get down to eye level and make eye contact.
FUN
Have fun together!
Follow your child’s interests.
WATCH AND LISTEN
Watch and listen carefully: what is your child trying to say?
Name the things you see or do.
“Look at those flags!”
TAKE YOUR TIME
Speak slowly and pause after speaking.
This will give your child more time to understand and respond.
SHOW IT
Speak in short and clear sentences.
Show what you want to say
(use facial expressions, gestures, pointing, pictures or drawings).
REPEAT
Repeat information or summarise.
Check if your child has understood.
“Can you water the plant, please?”
“Are you going to water the plant?”
“What are you going to do next?”
ASK QUESTIONS
Simple choice questions are the easiest: “Do you want this or that?”
Questions with “who”, “what” or “where” are more difficult.
Questions with “why”, “when” and “how” are the most difficult.
“Do you want an apple or a banana?”
STAY POSITIVE
Stay positive if your child makes mistakes.
Repeat what they say in the correct form.
“Food nice.”
“Yes, the food is nice.”
ADD WORDS
In response to your child, repeat the sentence and add a few words.
“Apple beautiful.”
“Yes, the apple is beautiful and red.”
You can also find these tips on a small poster (size A4).
Download the poster for free
Tips for specific language area’s
DLD is different for everyone. This is visible in the DLD Speech and language web.
We also give specific tips for the different parts of language.
Tips for speech sounds
- Respond to what your child says, not how they pronounce words.
- Do not say: “you said it wrong”. Instead, pronounce the word correctly yourself. For example, if your child says: “tootie nice”, you can say: “yes, the cookie is nice!”
- Repeat what you think your child said.
- Give your child time to respond.
- If you don’t understand, help your child to express the message in a different way. Say for instance: “I don’t understand you. Can you show me?”
Tips for words
- Make sure your child can also see, smell, taste or feel what you are talking about.
- Make words visual. For example, use gestures, body language, drawings, pictures or objects.
- Describe what you are doing. For example: “I’m putting on my coat”.
- Repeat new words often. Use them multiple times throughout the day, for example at home, at school, or in the supermarket.
- Explain words briefly. For example: “an apple is a fruit. You can eat it”.
Tips for sentences
- Use short and clear sentences.
- Repeat your child’s sentence in the correct form. If your child says: “daddy home, cooking”, you can say: “Yes, daddy is home, he’s cooking”.
- Make your child’s sentence longer by adding a few words. If your child says: “I falling”, you can say “Are you falling down?
- Use standard sentence constructions that you repeat often. For example: “Can I…”, “I want…”, “Can you help me, please?”.
- Start a sentence (“Tomorrow we will…”) and have your child finish it (“…visit grandma”).
Tips for stories
- Read (picture) books with your child. This will help with learning sounds, words and sentences.
- You don’t have to read every word, just talk about the pictures.
- Choose a book that matches your child’s interests and level of understanding.
- Use the book to have a nice conversation together. Check out these tips for interactive book reading.
- Ask questions about the story. Choose questions that fit your child’s development:
- Easy questions: who, what, where?
(“Where is the cat?”)
- Harder questions: how, why, when?
(“Why is the cat running away?”)
- Ask your child what they think. Has it happened to them? Do they think it’s funny?
- Talk about the story together. What happened first? What happened next? How did it end?
- Discuss together what was most important in the story.
- Read a book multiple times. Repetition is good. Try adding something new each time.
Tips for interaction
- Make sure to have fun! You can also have fun without language, so don’t put too much pressure on your child to talk.
- You can also start an interaction by making a joke. For instance, by intentionally dropping something (“oops!”).
- Give your child time to respond. Wait longer after saying or asking something.
- Be careful not to ask too many questions at once. Asking too much can create pressure.
- Try to avoid ‘test’ questions like “What’s that?” or “What is it called?”. If children don’t know the answer, they may feel they are failing.
- Ask questions your child can answer. For instance, give your child a choice (“do you want to play inside or outside?”).
- Make sure your child can also respond without words by using materials, gestures, pictures, pictograms, photos or videos.
Tips for learning and remembering
- Give one task at a time.
- Check if your child has understood the task (“what do you need to do?”).
- Draw or make a picture of what has to be done. For instance, use a planning board (getting dressed, brushing teeth, having breakfast…).
- Give your child enough time to think and to respond.
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