Developing spoken language involves many different stages where a baby or child progresses from cooing and babbling, through to speaking in long sentences with complex grammar. Progress through these stages relies on a child having strong ‘roots’ for developing language such as attention and listening skills, play skills and understanding of language. Parents and carers also need to provide a positive and language-rich environment to support their child’s development.
Here is some further information about the typical stages of language development:
- Cooing, babbling and making noises
- Saying single words
- Combining two words to form simple sentences
- Using longer phrases and sentences but often missing out grammatical markers
- Using longer sentences with developing grammatical information such as tenses and position words.
See below for the link to a progress checker and information on ages and stages of language development.
Top Tips for developing spoken language for younger children:
- During play follow their interests and talk about what they are doing. Children learn best whilst they are playing and having fun!
- Model language at their level e.g. use single words or short 2-3 word phrases.
- Ask less questions.
- Repeat back what they say, but add one more word e.g. Child says ‘dog’, Adult says ‘dog running’ or Child says ‘dog run’, Adult says ‘yes, the dog’s running fast’ etc.
- Offer choices in everyday activities to help them to learn new words e.g. ‘do you want juice or milk?’, ‘shall we play with cars or blocks?’ etc.
- Leave pauses to encourage them to fill in the gaps e.g. ‘It’s a ……’, ‘a spider lives in a ……’, ‘this one’s little and this one’s ……’ etc.
- Encourage them to learn nursery rhymes. Action rhymes are good because they can join in with the actions whilst they are still learning the words.
- Remember to label action words too e.g. pour, run, wash, help.
- Repeat new words again and again.
Top Tips for developing spoken language for older children (e.g. 5+ years)
- Repeat back their sentences to model correct sentence structure, word order and grammar for them.
- Extend their sentences by repeating back what they have said but adding more information, e.g. Child says ‘I kicked ball’, Adult says ‘yes you kicked the ball a long way’ etc.
- Use sentence completion to support vocabulary development e.g. ‘It’s a ……’, ‘a spider lives in a ……’, ‘this one’s soft and this one’s ……’ etc.
- Create opportunities to help them join in with class discussions, e.g. use visual resources from the lesson as a support, practise in small groups before whole class discussions.
- If they can’t think of a word, encourage them to describe it, tell you something about it e.g. what category is it, what colour/size/feel like, what does it do etc.
- Talk about the first sound of the word and the number of syllables to help them to store and recall the word more easily for the next time.
* If your child is over 5 years please see further advice in our Developmental Language Disorder section.
Gestalt Language Processing
Some children do not learn language by going through the typical stages listed above. Some children, in particular children with neurodiversity (such as Autism or ADHD) may learn language by first copying or echoing whole chunks of language. These children will learn phrases, sentences or whole scripts from parents, books, TV shows or video clips. These chunks of information are called ‘Gestalts’ or ‘scripts’. They may not use these phrases in a typical way at first but often in time this language does carry a meaning.
Here are some examples of Gestalts: “Let’s go” “What’s next” “It’s so fun” “Want to play” “Help me” “How about something different” “Stop doing that!” “Up and away”
How can we tell if someone who is non-speaking or minimally speaking is a Gestalt Language Processing?
- They may hum along to a song, or hum a repetitive tune.
- They might like people to sing the same song to them or repeat a song to themselves.
- They might watch the same programme or clip over and over.
- They might use long strings of unintelligible jargon.
- They might not be making progress with an analytical language approach.
- They might share video clips as a way of communicating.
Top Tips to support Gestalt Language Processors
- Don’t try to ignore or extinguish the script (gestalt)
- Remember copying or echoing is communication! – Smile, nod your head and repeat it back to them. Copy their intonation. Do this even if you can’t understand it what it means yet.
- Do the detective work – Try to figure out what their scripts mean. Most gestalts cannot be taken literally. At times a child may acquire a gestalt from their natural environment that reflects exactly what they want to say.
- Model language that you believe will be exciting, fun, and natural while keeping in mind what the child is enthusiastic about, as well as what they may find useful.
- Use rich intonation when modelling.
- Using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) alongside spoken language may be beneficial to support functional communication while for non or minimally speaking children.
