communication language speech delay toddler

10 Simple Tips for Teaching Your Toddler to Talk

Have you got your sights set on getting your toddler to FINALLY start talking? Getting to those first words can be as daunting. Perhaps you find yourself saying things like...

What I’m doing isn’t working. I’ve tried everything. I’m not able to teach my child to talk.

Sound familiar?

You’re not alone. Believe it or not, thoughts like these are common when you’re doing all the things, but not seeing change. It can really make us doubt ourselves as parents.

But they’re definitely holding you back from achieving your desired outcome of a talking toddler.

And I understand this not only as an Early Childhood Interventionist of 27 years, but also as a mom. My daughter had only 2-3 words at 18 months. Our son was an early talker, but the things we tried with our daughter didn’t seem to be working. I felt like a failure as a mom. I knew, however, that as her parent, I had the relationship, time and opportunity to be the most effective teacher of speech. What I lacked, however, was the knowledge of how.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot and I can’t wait to share it with you.

So today I want to share 10 simple tips for teaching your toddler to talk at home with the hope that you will be able to avoid some of the common pitfalls that I see many parents encounter, myself included.

#1. Build your understanding of how language develops in young children.

Understanding development is one of the most useful tools we can have in our parenting tool box. This is true whether we are talking about motor skills, social emotional development or language.

When we understand how speech skills develop, we are able to meet our child where they are at. When we don’t, we try strategies that are too advanced leading to frustration for our child and us.

I have MANY videos on my YouTube channel where I share information on toddler speech development. You can check out my speech playlist here.

Pro Tip: You may benefit from checking out my free Toddler Speech Checklist which you can grab here. It will help you to better determine what skills to work on with your child.

#2. Target Specific Words to Start

Language is like a light that is on a dimmer switch. Some kids come out with it turned all the way up (like my son). For others, it is turned way down (like my daughter). These kids are really good at figuring out other ways to get their needs met, e.g., using gestures, tantrums, etc.

I encourage parents to target specific, meaningful words with their child. Which words? It depends on your child. It needs to be something that is of interest or use to them.

For example, if your child frequently wants to be picked up and held throughout the day, target the word ‘up.’ If you live near the airport and your child loves to look for the planes, target ‘plane’ as we point to or make an airplane gesture.

Targeting affords you opportunities to work on:

Repetition which is crucial for learning in the early years.
Build joint attention. Joint attention is crucial for the development of communication skills. It establishes the basis for understanding that words and gestures can refer to objects and events in the environment. It also helps children learn that communication is a two-way process involving both sending and receiving message
Imitation. Pairing a word with a gesture Increases the likelihood of imitation which is where many kids get stuck on their language journey. More on that in a bit…
Consistency. I often tell parents that if you try to work on everything, you will achieve nothing. Targeting the same 1-2 words every day makes it much easier to be consistent which means more learning for your child.

Not sure which words to target? Check out this YouTube video where I discuss functional communication and the difference between core and fringe words.

#3. Remember to Label Objects of Interest Frequently

Remember what I said a moment ago about repetition? I want to say it again – it is crucial for learning for young children. For example, they estimate that a child will need to hear a word anywhere between 200 and 500 times before they will understand its meaning!

So, you want to label familiar objects frequently throughout the day. The key here is to make sure it is something that your child is interested in or that is pertinent to the current interaction.

For example, if your child is playing with his toy cars, showing him the ball and naming it frequently is probably going to be ineffective. It would make more sense to label the cars, eg, car, truck, digger..

Pro Tip: The hardest thing about this strategy is remembering to do it! That’s why I suggest that you put visual reminders up, e.g., a sticky note above the changing table that says ‘LABEL.’

#4. Always, Always, Always Follow Your Child’s Lead

This next one ties into the last — follow your child’s lead. Young children are egocentric. You are going to get more bang for your buck by following their lead than trying to get them to follow yours.

Imagine you are washing dishes at the sink and someone comes in and says ‘no, we are going to do this over here.’ Most of us would feel 1) compelled to finish our task before moving on to the next and 2) a bit annoyed that this person seems unconcerned with what we are currently doing. If this person did this frequently, we would probably not really want to hang out with them after a while.

We don’t want to make language routines aversive to our kids. So, JOIN your child’s play. Be a keen observer of their body language during interactions. Kids are really good at letting us know what they do and do not like. When you acknowledge this, it sends the message that you ‘get them.’ Over time, this will increase the likelihood that they begin to follow your lead giving more opportunities for you to model and teach words.

#5. Avoid Telling Your Child to Say Words At All Costs

I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard ‘say ball’ or 'use your words’ on a home visit with a toddler with a speech delay – I’d be a rich woman! Honestly, if your child had the words and understood the benefits of using them, he would!

I know this tip seems counterintuitive, but let me explain. As I mentioned in tip #1, understanding development is one of our greatest parenting tools. From a social-emotional standpoint, toddlers are going through a developmental stage that pretty much hard wires their brains to do the opposite of what we say. This is why when we tell them not to touch the TV, they look square at us while their tiny fingers move towards the screen.

So, when you tell your little one to ‘say’ this or ‘use’ their words, the little control alarm in their brains go off saying ‘don’t do it.’

What I encourage parents to do instead is ASK their child to say words. This gives the child a choice; something that I find leads to much more compliance.

For example, if your child is pointing to the sink while handing you his cup, you would ask ‘water?’ If your child smiles and nods yes, you would fill their cup and as you hand it to them say ‘Water! Can you say water?’ If your child imitates, cool! If they don’t, say ‘That’s okay, I don’t care if you do it’ (a challenge to most toddlers!). When we take the pressure off, even the most stubborn kid will eventually start imitating.

The key here is to take the pressure off, model simple words clearly and be patient.

Pro Tip: You may benefit from checking out my video on toddler social-emotional stages which you will find here. It will help you to better understand some of the challenging behaviors you may be experiencing with your child.

#6. Upgrade Your Daily Routines

Daily routines are one of the BEST ways to teach language to young children. They afford you the opportunity for that much needed repetition but they also provide situations where young children are more inclined to express a want or need.

Daily routines offer a fantastic opportunity to target words. For example, if you want your child to say ‘more’ you can incorporate it into mealtimes and snacks if they are highly motivated by food. Rather than giving them ALL the goldfish crackers, maybe you only offer them 3-4. When they have finished them and reach for the bag that is in your hands, you can model “Oh, you want ‘more?’ Can you say more?”

Other ways to upgrade your daily routines:

Label clothing items during dressing
Label body parts during bathtime
Incorporate songs and fingerplays into bathtime
Play ‘where’s the ______’ games during bookplay focusing on pictures of objects your child enjoys such as dogs or cars
Put favorite toys such as cars or blocks in clear plastic containers with screw on lids so they have to bring them to you for help

Incorporating just one strategy into meals or snacks is like having five to six little therapy sessions with your child. Add that up over the course of days and weeks and you can see how incorporating language stimulation strategies into daily routine, leads to more learning.

#7. Become the Noisy Parent

Imitation is a crucial skill for language development and one of the things that most young children get stuck on. As a matter of fact, 85% of children with speech delays struggle with imitation skills. Becoming the noisy parent can help spark your child’s imitation of sounds and words.

You can become a noisy parent by pairing sounds with your actions during play and daily routines. For example, saying ‘pop’ while popping bubbles or saying ‘beep beep’ while pushing a car across the floor. Most children will imitate the gesture. The key here is to pair the sounds with THEIR gestures until they do it on their own. This is how they learn to pair the gesture AND the sound together.

I often tell parents that gestures are a bridge to words. The more sounds and words we pair with our gestures and our childrens, the more imitation we will see from them. Want the most bang for your buck? Incorporate songs and fingerplays into daily routines! Check out this short YouTube video where I share my favorite fingerplay for working on imitation with toddlers.

#8. Focus On Comprehension

The next tip is to focus on comprehension, something that doesn’t get as much airplay as expressive language but is equally if not more crucial. You see, I can’t use words if I don’t know what they mean. I may be able to tell you I want an apple when I see it in front of me, but if I can’t point to it in a picture book when asked or find it in the kitchen, I haven’t truly grasped that the word apple represents the object.

The more words your child understands, the larger their vocabulary will grow. Here are some ways to work on comprehension:

Playing ‘where’s the ___’ games with objects they are familiar with, eg, their shoes or cup
Having them point to familiar pictures when looking at books
Working on simple directions with familiar objects, e.g., ‘get your shoes’ while pointing to the shoes
Playing Stop and Go games
Working on identifying body parts

When working on comprehension, I encourage parents to give lots of praise in the form of ‘good listening!’ when their child is successful. Why not start early to help our little ones understand that listening is highly valued by grown ups, right?

#9. Don't Make It Too Easy for Them

They estimate that 93% of communication is tone of voice and body language meaning only 7% is the words we use. This is why little ones can be so effective at communicating their wants and needs without ever saying a word! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a toddler throw their cup on the floor only to have the parent hop up and get them a refill.

It’s important for little ones to take more of a lead in expressing their wants and needs. In order for this to happen, we have to stop making things so easy for them. Using the example of the empty cup, in this situation I would encourage the parent to do nothing to see if their child would pick the cup up and bring it to them (a higher level of communication) and THEN go fill it up after modeling a word such as ‘more’ or ‘milk.’ If the child walked away, they didn’t want it bad enough to put the work in and that’s okay.

So, the next time you suspect that your child is going to want something, eg, more food, more drink, a different toy, I encourage you to WAIT before doing anything. If they really want the thing, they need to take some sort of action to let you, as their communication partner, know. THIS is how they learn the power of communication.

#10. Always Make Communication Fun.

Finally, you want to make communication routines fun for your child. The more positive feelings associated with an activity, the stronger the learning. This is why songs and fingerplays are so powerful with young children – it's hard not to be happy when singing a silly song! If working on imitating sounds or words during playtime is fun, they are going to want to do it during other routines.

As parents, it means that we have to take more of a play partner role than a teacher role, ie, being silly, light hearted, playful and spontaneous. I promise you, your child will be more receptive to communicating if you do so!

There you have it!

Did you find these tips helpful? If you still need help, shoot me a message here. There are no silly questions, and I am always happy to hear from parents. If you are looking for more toddler speech resources, head over to my resource page here. Until next time!