Reading is Fundamental

Reading is paramount in your child’s development.  It serves to enhance your child’s language development, creativity and ability to think. It also builds strong social emotional ties and encourages cognitive development.   Additionally, it is a perfect venue to spend quality time with your child.  Even if your baby does not yet understand words, by reading to them, they will begin to recognize and enjoy the sound of your voice.  Reading to your child will assist in creating parent/child bonds that will build your child’s sense of self and safety.  These connections are necessary precursors to spoken language.  Children who form secure relationships early in life with their parents and caretakers are likely to be able to develop healthy social emotional connections with peers and others later in their lives.  Furthermore, as you read to your toddler and begin to identify objects in books and ask wh questions, you are building their vocabulary, their ability to form sentences and narratives as well as enabling them to respond, question and reason.  Children who grow up reading are more likely to pick up words quickly, choose books rather than television, and develop a healthy respect for books.  All of which will lead to a strong foundation for a successful life and academics.

Here are some recommendations for just a few books that you and your children will love...
On Top Of Spaghetti
There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly
Caps For Sale
A Very Special House
Madeline (series)
One Fish - Two Fish - Red Fish - Blue Fish

What Do Toddlers Talk About?

The development of speech and language can vary between children -- and often does. However, there is a natural progression that typical development follows. Simply speaking, easier skills must be mastered before more difficult ones. Nonverbal benchmarks before verbal. Vocalizations typically emerge before babbling. Shorter utterances come before more lengthy ones. Sounds that require an open vocal tract such as ah come before sounds that require complex coordination of the articulators such as b or p. B and p come before s and z and so on. Additionally, children will typically tell you that there is an apple before they tell you that they eat apple and they will tell you they eat apple before they tell you that they eat apple on table.
While many of us may know when single words start to emerge in a child’s communication, other benchmarks are not so straight forward. When determining language development in your infant and toddler, the following points of reference can help frame typical development from birth to three years of age.
· At 6 months a child should be responsive to his/her name. S/he should vocalize and babble with intonation, respond to different emotional vocal tones and facial expressions, and turn his or her head towards sounds.
· At 12 months a child may be using one or more words with meaning such as mama, or baba. This is when a child begins to express intention. S/he should also understand simple directives when accompanied by visual cues and gestures.
· At 18 months a child’s vocabulary should be approaching 25 word; mostly nouns. S/he should use jargon with intonation, repeat a lot of what s/he hears, and follow simple directives without supporting gestures or visual cues.
· At 2 years of age a child should be able to verbally identify common objects with approximately 65% intelligibility. S/he should produce 1 and 2 word utterances combining nouns with verbs such as “eat cookie”. Verbs and adjectives are emerging in their lexicon and their vocabulary is growing larger approaching two to three-hundred words. Prepositions will also emerge such as on and in. S/he will begin to refer to him/herself as I or me. Their voice quality (pitch and amplitude) will not be well regulated at this time. Receptively, your child typically will follow directives such as “show me” “give me” and the most important “clean- up”
· At 3 years of age, your toddler should communicate with close to 90% intelligibility. S/he should use pronouns correctly. You may notice temporal markers such as the past tense “ed” are emerging in their language. Their vocabulary could be between 500 and 1000 words and s/he produces 3 word utterances. S/he will identify body parts and will be able to answer some “wh” questions such as, what do you do when you are tired? Additionally, a 3 year old child will relate better to their environment and they will begin to comment on their surroundings.
Do not fret, it does not necessarily mean there is a delay or impairment if your child has not met all of these milestones. Language development is influenced and dependent upon so many other factors. If you are concerned, contact your child’s pediatrician or a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist with your questions. They will help you to determine if a full language evaluation is necessary.