Three Reasons WHY Parents can make the biggest impact on their toddler’s talking!

1. YOUR CHILD IS MOST COMFORTABLE WITH YOU

Yes! Of course we want to take our children to a speech pathologist, or have their teacher work with them but truth is, YOU the parent are their world. You spend the most time with them and you already have their trust. If your little one isn’t talking and they are going to start attempting this new & complicated thing called talking, they are more likely to do try it out with you vs a stranger/therapist. Don’t get me wrong, I recommend all the things when it comes to speech and language intervention and all the people BUT the most important place to start is at home with the parents. That is where the toddler is most comfortable, loved and willing to take those risks and attempt those first words. 

2. RESEARCH SHOWS IT!

Parents can make an impact on their little one’s talking and this is backed by research. Did you know that parents who learned simple language enhancing strategies when their child was 6 months old lead to children with more advanced language skills at 4 yrs old! (Ramirez, 2019). And it continues into teenagehood. Research has found that children between the ages of 18-24 months who were in high talk environments had higher IQ’s as teenagers! (LENA team, 2018). If you want to set your little one up for life long success, YOU the parent have the ability to positively impact their learning at a young age! How inspiring is that ?

3. THE EARLY YEARS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

You may have heard this one before. The first 3 years of a child’s life are crucial for brain development and learning. This does not mean that a child will not learn and progress if they are older than 3 yrs old. But it does put emphasis on those early years and why early intervention (especially when it comes to talking and communicating) is so important. Their brains are little sponges and we want to feed them with high quality information when they are little. And who spends the most time with little ones when they are under 3 yrs old? YOU! 

So there you have it! It is wonderful to have additional support from educators and therapists but I hope you feel empowered knowing that YOU, as a parent, are able to make a big impact on your toddler’s communicating and talking with simple learned language strategies!