Receptive Language

Receptive Language

• Ways to Nuture Language Development

  • Talk to your child from the earliest weeks and months. What is said early on may not be understood but your voice will communicate your feelings and your baby should be interested and responsive.
  • Young children benefit greatly from individual time spent with their parent or carer. Turn off the TV or radio to be sure that the environment is quiet and free from distractions. It is best to be face to face with your child and on the same level. Playing on the floor together or sitting at the table means that you can share an activity and your attention is focused.
  • Follow your child’s lead, look to see what interests him and play with the toy that he chooses. Talk about what he is doing.
  • Make simple comments about the toy or what is happening in the ‘here and now’.
  • Keep your language simple, use short phrases and easy vocabulary to start.
  • Slow the pace of what you say and leave a pause after each phrase or sentence.
  • Use tuneful or slightly exaggerated intonation because it is more interesting for children to listen and attend to.
  • Repeat words many times as children need to hear the same word repeatedly before attempting it themselves. Say thing such as ‘teddy’s eyes, teddy’s nose, teddy’s ear’ etc

  • It is helpful to use routines such as meal times, bath time, dressing etc for talking as they provide opportunities to use the same language repetitively
  • For example, when going out ‘shoes on’, ‘coat on’, ‘hat on ‘ etc
  • Expand a little on what your child says : 
    
    • Eg; child; ‘there’s a big dog
    • adult; ‘yes’ it’s a big, black dog’
  • Reduce your amount of talking if necessary and leave space for your child to talk and to think about what he will say next.
  • Repeat sentences back to him. Accept unclear words without pointing them out or correcting them and say the sentence again clearly 
    
    • Eg; child; ‘the dwass is wet’
    • adult; ‘yes, the grass is wet’

  • Use gesture alongside words to help put your message across and     encourage use of gesture in your child.
  • Make sounds in play or add sounds to pictures in books encouraging your child to have fun making sounds too.
  • Lots of praise and encouragement will motivate your child and help them enjoy communicating.

  
  

• Giving a little more Information

  Help extend your child's language a little
  
  

  If your child says “bus” then you could say, “Yes, it’s a big red bus”. Or if the child says “I fall down” and point to his knee you could say “Oh dear, you’ve fallen down and hurt your knee”.

  
  

  Try to keep your sentence simple and just one step ahead of the child’s own level. Children learn more from conversation containing information about what is happening e.g. ”give the book to daddy to read” than they do from constantly being told what to do, e.g. “come on”, “put it down there”, “Stop doing that”.

• Teaching Verbs (action words)

  Talking about actions
  
  

  Once a child has a naming vocabulary of about 20-30 words it is useful to teach some verbs or action words. This can help the child to move from a one word to a two word or phrase level of expressing themselves.

  
  

  Children first learn to understand and use verbs by hearing them used to describe what they or others are doing. The verb is used to describe an action happening in the present tense. These verbs often end with 'ing' e.g. 'Eating…eating dinner'. Later children learn to use grammatical rules to alter verbs for use in the future and past tenses. Even later on they learn to remember the irregular verbs that need special grammatical rules e.g. to buy → bought, to catch → caught.

  
  

  It is easiest to teach verbs which describe actions that the children themselves can do and which can be seen e.g. jumping, climbing, drinking. It is more difficult to teach verbs which can't be seen such as, to like, to want . Begin with the easier verbs and move on to the others later.

• 'Here and Now' Language

  Young children are interested in what is happening here and now
  
  

  This means that to help them learn to talk it is important to talk about things that they can see, hear, touch and experience. They learn the names of things by being told the name of something at the same time as they are looking at it. For example, you both see a cat, point to it and you say ‘It’s a cat’, ‘Say ‘hello’ to the cat’, ‘Bye bye cat’. After hearing the name lots of times at the same time as seeing the cat, the child learns to call it a ‘cat’.

  
  

  Children take an interest in sounds and learn to understand words, a long time before they are able to say them for themselves. This means that by talking to your child as soon as they are born you are helping them learn to speak.

• Talk as you Walk

  Enjoy your walks
  
  

  Slow down and take time to look around. Comment on what you see and hear. Notice the little things as well as the big things. Be excited and enthusiastic!

  
  

  ‘Wow, here comes a big bus. It’s full of people. Lots of mummies and daddies…’

  
  

  ‘Look! Can you see the worm? He’s a wriggly one. Oh he’s gone. Down the hole. Bye bye worm.’

  
  

  ‘Can you hear that noise? I can hear a cat. ‘Miaow’, says the cat. He wants his dinner. Poor cat, he’s hungry. Dinnertime, cat. Bye-bye cat’.

  
  

  ‘Can you hear the plane? Where is it? There it is. There’s the plane. Up there. Up in the sky.’

• Use Everyday Routines

  Make the most of everyday routines for language development
  
  

  Here are some examples of the things you might say.

  
  

  Bathtime: Let’s wash your face; wash your arms. Now let’s wash your hands.

  
  

  Bedtime: It’s time for bed; put your pyjamas on; going to sleep in your bed.

  
  

  Dinner time: It’s dinner time. Sit in your chair. Eat your potatoes. Eat your meat. Drink your milk. Do you want some more milk? More potatoes? Dinner’s all gone now.

  
  

  Getting dressed: Put your pants on. Put your sock on. Now put your T-shirt on. One arm in. Now the other arm. One foot in. Now the other foot.

  
  

  Going shopping: Get your coat on. Shoes on. Off we go, to the shops. Buy some milk.

  
  

• Questions with Alternatives

  Provide a choice of answers
  
  

  Give the child an alternative question, e.g. “Would you like milk or orange?” As the child becomes more competent, lengthen the alternative question, e.g.”Are you going home for lunch today or staying at school?” This avoids yes/no answers, which do not always reflect that a child has understood the question and do not encourage spoken language.