Better Hearing and Speech Month is a time to make the community aware ways to help encourage communication development in children.  As your child’s speech and language skills develop there are activities and tips that you can do at home to enhance your child’s speech and language skills.

The American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA) has compiled a list of activities and tips to encourage your child’s communication development.  

Tips to Encourage a Child’s Communication Development

For young children:

• Talk, read, and play with your child.

• Listen and respond to what your child says.

• Talk with your child in the language that you are most comfortable using.

• Teach your child to speak another language, if you speak one.

• Talk about what you do and what your child does during the day.

• Use a lot of different words with your child.

• Use longer sentences as your child gets older.

• Have your child play with other children.

For elementary-age children:

• Have your child retell stories and talk about their day.

• Talk with your child about what you do during the day. Give them directions to follow.

• Talk about how things are the same and how things are different.

• Give your child chances to write.

• Read every day. Find books or magazines that interest your child.

To learn more about types of communication disorders check out our other blog post in our BHSM series ‘What are Communication Disorders?’ and ‘Signs of Communication Disorders’.

In honor of BHSM, In Home Speech Solutions will be providing free speech and language screenings for families who are concerned about their child’s speech-language development. For more information on our free screenings, please call 813-485-4104 or visit www.speechtampa.com. Additionally, feel free to contact In Home Speech Solutions if you have questions or concerns or if there’s anything we can help with.

Jennifer Price M.S., CCC-SLP

Lead Speech-Language Pathologist & Owner

Resources:

Member Press-Release Template Speech Language in Children. American Speech Language Hearing Association. Retrieved from https://www.asha.org