How can I help my pretoddler and toddler develop language skills?
Here are five ideas to help you help your children develop language skills: l. It is not necessary to use “baby talk.” It is very tempting to reduce what you are saying to what you think the baby understands, such as “Ryan, no touch, that bad.” Children are wonderful decoders. If you say, “Ryan, don’t touch that, it’s bad,” he will (even at the young age of six months) understand the tone of voice, the facial expression, and any gestures you might use. By twelve to fourteen months, he’ll understand enough of the words and intonations to figure out exactly what you are telling him. Children are wonderful imitators too. Why not give them a chance to learn the correct sentence structure? 2. Talk about anything and everything! This gives your child a chance to pair words with concepts. Even though he will not understand all the words at first, what a great exposure to the world you are giving him. When you go to the grocery store, talk about what you are getting, where you are going next,
