As a parent, you are your child’s first and most important teacher. Your interactions with your child are critical to all areas of development. One of these strategies that parents can use to aid development of early language skills is Parallel-Talk.
In Parallel-Talk, the parent is talking about what the child is doing when engaged in play or some activity, narrating the child’s actions. It is important to remember that children understand a great many more words than they actually speak. So supplying language modeling when no speech is heard, helps to form sentences in your child’s thoughts. You are putting words and sentences in his/her mind, which can help develop and expand expressive skills.
As your child plays, you want to supply short phrases describing what he is doing. For Example: “Sam pushes his truck. Push the blue truck. Beep, beep goes the truck. The truck goes fast.”
In Parallel-Talk, the parent is naming objects that will expand vocabulary, as well as modeling sentences that can expand into future expressive language skills. Remember, you are your child’s first and most important teacher and you can do much to promote your child’s language-learning.
Author – Lorraine Bukilica, MA. CCC-SLP
Speech Pathologist
Aspire Speech & Learning Center