So we know with a pretty high degree of certainty that the amount of talking done with children during their infancy and toddlerhood has a great effect on their language development, but what about HOW we talk to them? Does the way we talk to them make a difference, as well?
Yes, it does.
So, we’ve covered the “how much” and the “how” to talk to little children, but what about the “what”? What kinds of words and sentences do we speak to children to help optimize their language experience?
Many parents, health care professionals, child care professionals and even Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) have become accustomed to shortening longer sentences to simplify them. This usually means taking out grammatical parts of words or sentences. This is done with the hopes that simplification to core vocabulary helps bui
“Put shoe on” (Correct form: Put your shoe on.)
“Mommy do” (Correct form: Mommy will do it.)
“Give daddy” (Correct form: Give it to daddy.)
I posted this cartoon on our Facebook page to give a humorous prelude to this article. (And BTW…please Like our page!)
Although people’s hearts are in the right place, this technique, in fact, has been shown to NOT be helpful (never mind that it also sounds a little strange and nonsensical). Recent research has shown the opposite effect: Children spoken to in short, grammatically correct sentences had larger vocabulary growth than children spoken to in shortened sentences. Please contact me if you would like the original research.
So the take-home message is this:
Keep it short, simple, but GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT! (We don’t need to speak like cave people to our children!)