It is no longer a new topic for young parents to worry that the baby in the family is almost two years old and still can’t speak very well, or for some parents to hope to do some what to help the baby in the family develop his language.
So, should the language development of children aged 1 to 3 be a case in what? Is it necessary to adopt some methods to train children’s language ability? If so, how can we do it?
This is how most children learn to speak.
First of all, let’s look at the milestones of children’s language development between the ages of 1 and 3:
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12-16 months: Able to understand 100-150 words, simple sentences or requests, and able to respond to received requests; Can speak 20 ~ 30 words;
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16 ~ 20 months: Able to understand 200 words and phrases; Can speak 50 ~ 200 words; At the age of 18 months, it entered the period of vocabulary boom.
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20 ~ 24 months: Able to understand sentence relations and word order; Master the ability to reorganize pronunciation and express intention;
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24 ~ 36 months: Able to understand complex sentences; Derive grammatical structures and rules.
What if you fall behind the standard process?
Seeing this, some parents may be nervous: my child has not reached this milestone target at a certain age, what should I do?
On the one hand, parents need to set up a correct view: it is not surprising that children’s language development is uneven due to individual differences.
There is such a phenomenon, some children start to speak very early, some children can only say a few words when they are two years old. For example, some children’s language development is regularly several months later than the indicators in this milestone. In fact, the delay is only within 6 months, and the problem is not big.
On the other hand, if children are excluding some congenital diseases (such as autism) and there is really language development retardation, parents should first think about the causes of children’s language development retardation.
Remember, simple anxiety cannot solve the problem, but it may make the situation worse: in case parents lose patience and start punishing or criticizing children, it will cause unnecessary harm.
How do parents cultivate their children’s language ability?
So, in order to better promote children’s language development and prevent children’s language development from being slow, can parents do some what or pay special attention to what?
Let’s tell a story about my nephew first.
A few years ago, when my nephew was two years old, he could only say a few simple words like [father] and [mother]. Family members are especially worried about my nephew’s language development.
My nephew’s mother explained that she can understand her child very well. Whenever he points at something or just says a few words, she can immediately understand what he means and then do what he means.
My nephew’s father is often not at home, and his younger brother was born at that time. In order to take good care of his younger brother, my mother did not have much time to play with him. Therefore, my elder nephew often plays alone at home. Plus my mother knows him well enough, he does not need to say too much under the only opportunity to communicate with others.
Over time, the language development of the big nephew has slowed down.
You may see some problems, such as:
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Nephew has simple language expression ability when he is 2 years old, but it is worse than children of the same age.
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My nephew’s mother often said what he wanted to say for him. It seems that he doesn’t have to study hard any more.
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My nephew’s parents play with my nephew and have little chance to talk to him.
How can this be avoided? You can try the following six principles. Although they have different emphases, they are also interrelated:
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In the communication with children, parents should listen patiently, and at the same time do not forget to look at the children. Use your eyes and expressions to express their reactions consistent with the language, such as happiness, doubts, doubts, refusal, etc.
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When a child tries to describe something but lacks corresponding words, parents should imagine what the child wants to say and try to say the correct words in a questioning tone.
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When a child has made a mistake or has not finished speaking, parents must not directly interrupt or correct the child. They should first give praise (e.g. [Uh, baby is awesome]) and then repeat the correct words. In this case, don’t criticize or punish.
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When the child is four or five months old, While still in the period of babbling, Such as the monosyllabic word [ba, ma, pa] (phonetic alphabet), Parents should not repeat their children’s meaningless voices, But should restate the correct statement, So that the child can receive more correct pronunciation phonemes, And slowly integrate it into their pronunciation to promote the change from the [babbling] period to the [correct language expression] period. Therefore, this highlights that parents should pay special attention to giving their children enough correct words expression during the preparation period of language development before the age of one, especially during the peak period of 4 to 6 months of [babbling] use.
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Parents should make more use of “child-oriented language”, which is spoken slowly, in high tones, frequently repeated, and emphasizes key words, so as to better enhance communication with their children. For example, [throw the ball, baby! It’s not the rattling one, see? Yes, that’s the ball. Throw the ball.]
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Both parent-child interaction and playmate interaction can well promote children’s language development in different scenes. Therefore, parents should interact with their children as much as possible, such as playing games with their children.
What should parents do?
Finally, let’s take a look at how the following attentive and patient mother promotes her children’s language development.
My mother took her 18-month-old child to the supermarket for shopping.
Passing through the vegetable area, the child pointed to the eggplant and looked at his mother. The mother smiled at the child and said, “Oh, this is eggplant. Do you want to eat eggplant?” But we just ate eggplant yesterday. How about we change to vegetables other than eggplant today? ]
What happened? Where’s what?
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Intentional mothers first establish eye contact with their children in their daily dialogue with them.
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Secondly, she gave the child a word that she wanted to express but could not express-eggplant.
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In addition, the mother used the current situation to repeat the word [eggplant] four times, which naturally left enough deep language stimulation for the child.
Finally, let’s summarize
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First of all, please parents understand that each child is unique and everyone’s development has its own speed. What we are usually talking about is [average level].
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Secondly, if there is a problem with the child’s language development, parents should ask a professional doctor to help judge the child’s condition as early as possible and find out whether it is a developmental problem or an educational problem. The earlier the intervention on the developmental problem, the better the effect.
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Thirdly, if the child’s development problem is excluded, parents need to find out the root cause of the child’s slow language development, such as whether they have spent enough time interacting with the child, whether they have repeated words that the child has not yet mastered on different occasions, etc., so as to solve the problem in a targeted way.
In short, be patient and have heart. Parents are the strong backing for children’s development.