Hi! Welcome Back to another section of Developmental Milestones in Speech and Understanding. This time it is targeting age 2-3 years old’s Language Development.

DISCLAIMER: Please remember every child develops at their own rate! These are what a typically developing child will acquire during this time period. If they aren’t doing all of it or you are reading along and notice that they don’t do ANY of them, then it is time to speak to a professional. If they are doing some and you notice a few are missing keep reading and I give you a bit of support on how to get them to do these things.

I encounter this on a daily basis in the setting that I am currently working. One of the cases sticks out prevalently. I was working with a child who would only say “YES, NO and MAMA”. They literally used only these 3 words, the rest of their communication was yelling, “AHHHHH,” or using gestures. Mom was mostly asking “Yes or No” questions. “Do you want this? Do you want that?” We worked on training mom to use open ended questions, labeling different objects, requesting and validating what they were saying. This kids progress was AMAZING and soooooooo fast. Once they were given this opportunity they jumped in a matter of 3-6 months from using 3 words to at least 500!!!!!!! This poor child had all of that vocabulary tied up in that beautiful brain. They were finally able to express themselves once given the opportunity. So for your little ones sake, use open ended questions! Give them choices. Wait for them to respond and let them know what they have to say is important.

Here are some tips to help you achieve this. During the age range from 2-3 your little one should be able to understand the following.

• Opposties - Like (UP/DOWN), (STOP/GO), (LIGHT/ Dark) etc.

• 2 Step Directions - They should be able to follow two step directions, an example is, “Go get your socks, bring them to me please.” In play you might use more of these directions than you notice also like….get the ball, throw it to me.

• Understanding New Words - They should be able to understand new words quickly. So what the heck does that mean huh? It means that when you introduce something new to them they are able to grasp it. Maybe you have to show it to them 2 or 3 times, but they are typically able to get it very quickly.

• Speaking - In speech they should now be able to talk about things not in the room, maybe it is something that they left in the other room and they want to play with it or see it. You might get a comment about someone that is in another room like, “Grandpa in his room,” or, “Doggie outside.”

• Sounds - They should by now also have several different sounds that they are using, such as the K(cat), G(good), F(food), T(toy), D(Doggie), N(No) in words.

• Prepositions - Prepositions are direction words such as ABOVE, UNDER, IN, NEXT TO, ON, BELOW, etc.

• 3-word-phrase - Not only will they begin to use all of the above to communicate more effectively and clearly but they will be able to use 2-3 words to talk about needs, wants and thoughts but they will be able to ask for stuff. You should hear questions such as,

  • “I have cereal?”

  • “I want cereal.”

  • “Is it hot?”

• Being Understood by Others - One of the big topics is that people that surround your child such as others who live in the same household should be able to understand what they are saying. This does not mean that a stranger or a distant friend should understand everything that your little one is saying. But Mom, Dad, Grandparents(if close), close friends who are interacting with them often should understand your child. A typical child around the age of 2 should be 50-70% intelligible and a 3 year old should be approximately 80% intelligible.

• Asking “Why?” - One of the most fun questions that they will begin to ask is…WHY? OOOOO yes the dreaded “why”… Well for some people it’s dreaded. So coming from the background that I come from..the hispanic culture. The answer to this question for many was always “BECAUSE I SAID SO.” I was extremely fortunate to not hear this often. I might get in trouble for this one but, I am speaking as a professional, with no impact from the past. EXPLAIN THE WHY!!!! It is 100% ok to take 10 minutes out of our busy day to explain something to a child. They ask why because they need help understanding. It is up to us to enlighten and show them how the world works. Honestly, there are sometimes where the “why” is not very easily explained or you don’t know the answer. Well the awesome thing about the society we live in is that there are thousands of answers at our finger tips. So instead of saying, “Because I said so,” PROVIDE RATIONALE OR AN EXPLANATION. If you don’t know, LOOK IT UP. Say, “Let’s find out,” help them discover and treat it as an adventure. If it is not age appropriate….explain to them that they will learn this when they are a little older and that it is for adults. This is a very fun age, a lot of people call it the terrible 2’s right? It makes sense they are trying to learn more and more and…they can begin to make their own opinions. OOOOO it can be crazy! They are supposed to take different steps to solving a problem at this age, which of course, can get messy. If you are the personality type that hates messes (shhhh like me), we are in for a wild ride. There are so many ways we can guide play and understanding for the little ones though. A few ways that we can assist little ones in their understanding and speaking are to use short words and sentences.

• NO BABY TALK!!! SPEAK CLEARLY!!! Repeat what they say and add more to it. Here is an example:

  • Little One (LO): Yum cookie!

  • Parent: Yes, that is a yummy cookie, it smells so good, do you want to smell it? (Wait for a response)

  • LO: Smell it?

  • Parent: (let them smell it)…mmmm it looks good…want to taste it? (then you bite it EAT IT ALL and say it was yummy…. JUST KIDDING! You can let them taste it.)

  It is so important that you give them a chance to respond to you and let them use their words. It can be a challenge for sure in that since up to this point the conversational exchanges have been minimal for some and now we have to take time to listen to their opinions. It is also important to let them know what they are saying is important to you. If you don’t understand, ask for clarification… “Mama! Ball!” You can say, “Ooo a ball. I know you want a ball. Which one do you want?” It is time for them to begin to make decisions and explain what they want or need.

• Teaching words - Now is the time to keep teaching them NEW words… But how?!?!?! READING!!!! WHEN YOU READ, ITS PERFECT MODELING OF:

  • Correct grammar

  • Word shapes

  • Intonation

  • Inflection

  So much good can come out of something so simple. To begin talk about things they know about or are familiar with….colors, shapes, letters and numbers are a few. Then name objects in the books. Show them how to use synonyms, like lady, mommy, woman grown-up, adult, etc. I have heard many times, “My kid just doesn’t like books.” That’s fine, but they are sooooooo much easier to use to facilitate excellent communication. The type of book that I highly recommend are Poke-a-Dot books by Melissa and Doug. They keep your little one engaged and give them some tactile stuff to do while you can get them involved in reading. There are other books that have several different things to touch. This is an excellent way to get them interacting with textures and get them engaged in book reading.

• Categories - Start to introduce categories, you can use books for this also or you can use fun games like Whats in Ned’s head. This is a game that you have a plush head that is filled with “gross” stuff like a bug, a lizard, a melted lollipop etc. but you can put in other objects that can be categorized like clothes, animals, foods etc. These do not have to be real objects toys are perfect. Then as you pull them out categorize them like all of these are food or categorize in color.

• Photos - Scrapbooking, or in todays society, your phone, to look at family photos and talk about what is happening, say the names of the people, the relation to you etc. What actions are happening? Where are they? etc. If you are scrapbooking or have the actual printed photo, you can write simple phrases under the pictures to establish meaning, like day at the pool, happy birthday Grandpa, etc.

• Open ended questions and choices - GIVE THEM CHOICES…YOU, probably already know what they want or need but now is the time to give them options. Like, “Ooo you are thirsty,” ask them what they want. Milk or water (facilitation of choice!!!! Like I previously stated, now is the time to get them to start making decisions and letting them tell you.) WAIT FOR THE ANSWER!!! Then praise them for answering! You can say thank you for telling me what you want! I will get you a glass of milk. Give them a chance to talk, present OPEN-ENDED questions for them and give them time to answer.

• In our previous blog and YouTube video we stated that singing songs is so important to proper development. Guess what?! It still is at 2-3. Keep singing songs, playing finger games, telling nursery rhymes. All of these may seem redundant but they teach your little one about rhythm and the sounds of language.

• Languages - All of these models and communication exchanges are to be held in… TADA!!!! ANY LANGUAGE!!! WHATEVER YOU ARE MOST COMFORTABLE WITH!

Once again, thank you for checking out the blog and maybe you watched the video above on this. I have a couple of other tips in there. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for our next video on 3-4 year old development and the blog. PLEASE, Please remember that all children develop at their own rate, this blog does describe when most children will reach these milestones. If they aren’t performing a few of these skills it does not mean that they have a problem, if they are missing ALL of them, then you may need to seek assistance, you can do so by speaking to your pediatrician or a speech pathologist to see what the next steps would be. Hope that this remains useful to you! Thank you again for reading.