Contents

1. What is language
2. Language - the early stages
3. What will help my child learn to talk?
4. Towards a perfect sentence
5. Good ideas for language learning

5. Good ideas for language learning

Over the past 20 years, a great deal of research has been done on child language and on mothers’ talk to children. The following suggestions are based on that research, which shows these all help language learning in children.

• Listen to your child and find a moment to answer.
• Look to see what your child wants to talk about — let him decide — then you’ll he sure of your child’s attention.
• Leaving spaces/pauses in your talking to let your child have a say is important. It’s your child who needs to practise talking not you! Your child should he doing most of the talking. Learning to listen is a difficult thing for some parents, but important for deaf children.
• Let your child interrupt you — then you will start to have a real conversation! Two people talking together.
• DO speak normally to him and insist that everyone else does too.
• Accept what your child says no matter how oddly it might be put. It’s the best she can do at the moment so he pleased for her. She’s trying her best.
• Your child will enjoy joining in with your tasks at home and in the garden. By sharing the jobs with him you will be using the special language and particular words that go with that job.
• Use proper words with him. He will not learn ‘tea towel’, ‘dishcloth’, ‘floor swab’, ‘flannel’, ‘duster’, ‘bib’, ‘J cloth’, ‘serviette’, ‘napkin’, etc., if you use ‘cloth’ all the time because you know he understands it.
• It is important not to talk in too simple a way to deaf children - use the words you would talk to any child. If you don’t ‘pull her leg’, ‘give her a piece of your mind’, ‘face the music’ etc she is being cut off from a whole world of language which will confuse and embarrass her when she does discover it. But try to explain what it means now and again.
• Whilst chatting to him, remember that it’s hard for him to catch what you are saying. Help him to understand you by repeating yourself for him and by re-phrasing using other words to get your meaning across. Use pictures, books, calendars to cue him in to help him realise what you mean
• CUEING IN is an important and valuable help for deaf children. They often don’t understand you because they don’t know what you’re talking about. Cueing in means giving them a clue before you start to talk. E.g. if you’re going to talk about Granny coming to visit, point to Granny’s photo — your child then knows what you’re going to talk about and is much more likely to catch what you’re saying.
• It’s a good idea to keep a record of what your child says. For example, jot down new words as he says them. You could keep a sheet of paper stuck to the kitchen wall so it’s always handy. It’s hard to remember later. Or write down some of the things he says on the first day of each month and you will soon see for yourself the progress he makes.
• The research also tells us about some things which seem not to help children to learn to talk.
• Don’t try to make your child speak when she wants to be quiet.
• Go easy on the questions when you speak with your child — too many questions sound like an examination not a chat. They can make even confident speakers clam up.
• Give your child time to think about what to say you might wait what seems like an long time before he is ready, but it’s important that your child can take their time. But be sensitive don’t let the silence hang on too long. Perhaps he has nothing to say just now.
• Correction is a kind of criticism. Rephrase what she’s said if you want to, but don’t allow her to think that she ‘doesn’t speak properly’
• Let your child work out how to put words together themselves — it may take them a long time, but there really is no better way. Trying to help may well actually confuse. It’s best to let sentences come along in the child’s own time.