Tag: language
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Read Across America Week 2025
It’s Read Across America Week! From March 2-8, 2025, communities all over the United States are celebrating one of our favorite things at the MACAW Lab: reading books! Read Across America Week began as a celebration of Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2nd. Its goal is to allow others to share a love of books…
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Word of the Week: Sign Languages
Sign languages are languages that use gestures, hand movements, and facial expressions instead of spoken words. They are true languages, more organized and complex than body language or baby signs, complete with their own grammatical structures. Because sign languages do not use sounds like oral languages, aspects like emotion and emphasis are added with the…
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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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Word of the Week: Telegraphic speech
Telegraphic speech is a way of speaking that does not include grammatical morphemes. Grammatical morphemes are the small units of language that add meaning to words and sentences, like the past tense marker -ed, the plural -s, or prepositions like in and on. An example of a telegraphic utterance would be “Mommy feed baby” to…
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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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Word of the Week: Theory of Mind
Theory of mind is the ability to interpret the mental states of others, such as beliefs, desires, and emotions. Theory of mind allows a person to understand others’ thoughts and intentions as well as explain and predict others’ behavior. It also allows a person to understand that someone may hold different beliefs than their own.…
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Word of the Week: The Five Domains of Language
The domains of language are the broad ways to analyze language. The five domains are phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The domains can be understood as lenses through which we can study language, with each one contributing something different. When put together, they form our complex and ever-changing language system. Phonology is the study…
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Word of the Week: Receptive and Expressive Language
Receptive and expressive language are the language we understand and the language we use. Though they are different skill sets, they work in tandem, and effective communication is dependent on both. Receptive language refers to input: it is the ability to understand spoken or written language. Following directions, answering questions, and reading comprehension are all examples…
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