Welcome back! If you’ve been following along with these suggestions, perhaps by now you’ve reached a point where your child has begun to use several single words, but hasn’t yet begun to combine them into phrases or sentences. So now what? How can you encourage your child to begin to use phrases?
Expand upon what your child says. When your child uses a single word, use that word in your response to him, but add to it in order to provide a richer model for him.
You might be realizing that your child is using the same word to communicate many different messages, and sometimes you struggle to understand his intent because he’s only using a single word. For example, if your child says “car,” he might be trying to tell you that he sees a car, that he likes cars, that he wants to go in the car, that a car is fast, etc. In many situations, there is enough context available for you to figure out the basic idea of what your child is trying to say, and if you can do that, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to expand upon his message. You might say, “a blue car,” “ride in the car,” or “the car stopped.” Start with simple models, just adding a few words, and then gradually add more words.
While it’s important to provide consistent models, and many children require multiple models over time in order to imitate a phrase, it’s also a good idea to mix it up a bit. The more variety you provide, the more vocabulary he will be exposed to, and the more likely he will be to begin using new and different words in simple phrases.
Once your child starts to produce simple phrases of two or three words, you can make your expansions more detailed in order to encourage more mature sentences. For example, if you hear “car go,” you might respond, “the car goes fast” or “the car goes on the street.” Try to use the words in the order he used, and don’t directly correct him, but provide the model of the sentence when you respond. It’s very normal for children to use the simplest form of a verb, but we can teach them to use other tenses by modeling them in our responses.
Also, it’s important to keep in mind that, while many children under the age of three do use lengthy sentences, it really is quite normal for a two- to three-year-old child to use only two or three words in a phrase. Between the ages of three and four, we typically begin to see sentences of four or more words. Try to use these simple guidelines as you provide your expansions. It’s great to provide models that are more complex, but don’t be surprised if you only hear back two to three words at a time. With consistent expanding and modeling, longer and more complex sentences usually appear before you know it.
While this will certainly not solve all communication problems, it is just one of many ways you can encourage your child to develop language skills. Check future newsletters for more suggestions!
Meaghan Capellini is a NYS-licensed, ASHA-certified, and PROMPT-trained Speech-Language Pathologist and Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities, as well as a mother of two young children. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 914-471-3126.
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