Language

That is not something to work out from a list on the internet, and it is worth asking somebody who can tell you properly. What helps is writing down what you are seeing before you go, because that is what makes the appointment useful. How many words they have, and whether new ones are still arriving. Whether they use words to ask for something or only to name things. Whether they copy you. Whether they can follow a simple instruction without you pointing. And whether it is only the words that seem behind, or the pointing and the play and the looking at you as well. A speech pathologist is the person who can tell you what that adds up to.

Leave gaps. The most useful thing you can do is set up a moment where your child needs you, and then wait. Our Early Years Language kit is built entirely out of that idea. Everything in the box has a waiting gap in it on purpose: a lid nobody can get off on their own, a tea party that needs someone to pour, five ducks that go missing one at a time. Your child gets a reason to communicate, and a second or two of silence from you is what lets them take it. Pause before the last word of a song they know. Put the thing they want where they can see it and not reach it and watch how they communicate. Offer two things rather than asking an open question. And try not to finish the sentence for them, which is the hardest part of all of it.

Give them a way to show you in the meantime, because waiting for words is not the only option. Our ALD boards put a picture symbol beside each word, so language becomes something your child can point at instead of say. The song boards do the same with Five Little Ducks and Twinkle Twinkle, so you can point while you sing and they can join in long before they can say the words. Our speech pathologists use the boards alongside everything else rather than instead of it.

Two reasons, and they are different. A song your child already knows has a predictable gap in it, which is the easiest place in the world for a first word to land. Pause before “little star” often enough and you will hear it. The other reason is about reading, later on. Before anyone can read a word they have to hear that it is made of parts, and rhyme is how most children first notice that. Our Sounds and Rhymes kit works on it through silly sentences, rhyming pairs and hopping one sound at a time across the floor. Your child does not need to know a single letter to start.

By where your child is up to rather than by their age, although our speech pathologists did build them with rough ages in mind. Early Years Language is the first, made for roughly one to three, and you start there if your child can make it very clear when they are cross or delighted but cannot yet tell you what they want in words. Sounds and Rhymes is the second, made for roughly three to six, and you start there if your child talks easily and is heading towards reading. Language and Conversation is the third, made for roughly seven to ten, and you start there if your child talks plenty and still cannot get the message across, or cannot yet tell a story somebody else can follow. If you are not sure, email us at ask@theplayway.com and we will help you choose.