“Not that one, I want that one!” Is your child shouting about his yellow truck on the couch or his blue train under the couch? As children develop, they learn the critical language skills of ‘being specific’ and ‘getting to the point’. First, children need to “paint a picture in the listener’s head”. They must be specific, leaving no doubt about their intentions. Second, they learn that if their communication does not work the first or second time, they need to go to ‘Plan B’: recognise that their communication has broken down and change their utterance to give more information. Saying the same thing louder and louder doesn’t help anyone!
Children with language impairment often find it hard to understand the sort of information you need as a listener and assume that you share their perspective. This typically results in frequent communication breakdowns and frustration for children and parents. Research shows that children with weak expressive language skills often use vague, general terms such as ‘it’, ‘there’ and ‘that one’. Such terms are efficient only when we have explicitly named the ‘it’ previously or clearly described ‘where’ the ‘there’ may be.
– At two years old, children start to use adjectives of colour and size.
– Children will differentiate location with specific prepositions of ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’ and ‘next to’ well before their third birthday.
The team at Box Hill Speech Pathology are experts in typical language development and can identify if your child’s language skills are lagging behind age expectations. We understand how to build these skills step-by-step and use evidence-based techniques to help your child become a more effective communicator, reducing frustration for both of you.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of your child’s expressive language skill development, call Box Hill Speech Pathology on 9899 5494 for more information or to book an initial assessment.
Content by Vicky Andrews and Genevieve Callister
Editing by Nicola Anglin
