Category: Articles
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Read: Reading Books to Your Baby or Toddler
Reading to your child is an activity that provides many benefits, and it is never too early to start. It encourages language development in several ways such as by introducing new sounds, words, and concepts. This will ultimately help improve literacy skills. But the advantages don’t stop there—reading allows for bonding, boosts emotional development, and…
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Read: Language Activities to Improve Speech for Babies and Toddlers
Children look to their caregivers to teach them about the world. Parents play a big role in supporting their children’s language development—and they can can make it fun! Here are 34 language activities from Speech Blubs to help your child master language as they develop. Adding some of these techniques can help to support language…
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New milestones from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has released new communication milestones for speech, language, and hearing for ages birth to five years in addition to feeding and swallowing milestones for ages birth to three years. The communication milestones were informed by research on children learning English in the United States. The feeding and swallowing milestones are…
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Read: Understanding Toddler Words
When toddlers begin to speak, their pronunciation is often less than perfect. This can be pretty adorable at times, but can hinder communication at others. This article from What to Expect explains some common toddler speech errors and why they might occur. It also gives some tips and tricks for helping your child improve their…
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Read: How Bedtime Stories Can Reinforce Literacy Skills
Reading bedtime stories can help children improve their language skills, such as pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Long before they begin to talk, babies are listening to and learning about the language they hear around them. Reading books aloud expands their understanding of language and allows them to hear words and phrases that might not be…
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Read: There’s More to Your Infant’s Language Skills Than Their First Words Suggest
A common theme that underpins language research is that language development is an impressively complex process. This article from Very Well Family summarizes the findings of a 2021 study from the University of Edinburgh that gives us a new piece of this puzzle. The results show that babies can remember multiword sentences even before they…
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Read: Raising Bilingual Children
There are many reasons to raise a child to be bilingual or multilingual. Some parents do so because their native language, or that of their family, is not the mainstream language spoken where they live. Other parents want their children to be connected to their culture. Others still simply want their child to have more…
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Read: What Is Speech Therapy?
Navigating the world of speech therapy can be overwhelming at first for parents and families. This article from Parents is a comprehensive guide to speech therapy. It begins by outlining the basics of what speech therapy is and how it works. It then discusses common reasons one might need it and signs that it may…
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Read: How to Tell if Your Child is a Late Talker
What exactly is a late talker? How can you tell if your child’s language development is on track? What should you do if it’s not, and will they catch up? Some might encourage a “wait-and-see” approach, but this article from the Hanen Centre debunks this and other miscommunications about delayed language development. Based in research,…
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Read: Learning Verbs
Verb learning happens after noun learning. One explanation for this is that actions are harder to picture or point out and pair with a word than objects are. When toddlers begin to use verbs, they tend to make some mistakes, like saying “runned” instead of “ran” or “eated” instead of “ate,” for example. These mistakes…
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