**TRY SOME OF THESE SUGGESTIONS TO STIMULATE SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT**
TALK to your child about everything. Children need a lot of verbal
stimulation from infancy on. Play games with sounds and words. Your children
pick up most of their vocabulary from you.
LISTEN to your child and expand his/her language. Use well-formed sentences
that are a little longer the childs. Use new vocabulary.
Child: "This my truck."
Adult: "That is your new red truck."
READ to your child frequently. Talk about pictures and events in books. Your
child learns new vocabulary, concepts and patterns of language from being
read to. READ cereal boxes, street signs, etc.
PLAY games with your child. He/she can learn coordination, how to follow
directions and rules, turn taking, how to communicate with others and new
concepts.
CLASSIFY. Help your child make scrapbooks or sort things in order to teach
the concepts of size, shape, color, matching, smae/different, comparisons,
etc.
PROVIDE NEW EXPERIENCES. Take field trips (to the bank, post office, grocery
store) to have your child experience real life situations (have them buy a
stamp, ask for change, order at McDonalds). Do science experiments (great for
problem solving and predicting0 and craft projects together. Talk about your
experiences together and describe/retell the days events.
STRENGTHEN SPEECH MUSCLES. Eat crunchy foods, chew licorice, blow bubbles and
party horns. Drink thick milkshakes and use straws.
MOST OF ALL...MAKE LANGUAGE AND SPEECH FUN FOR YOUR CHILD. REINFORCE HIS/HER
ATTEMPTS AT NEW LANGUAGE CONCEPTS!
